A Whitethroat perched in a bush in the Rose Garden, the first I've seen there though Ahmet Amerikali found a pair several years ago.
A Chaffinch sang near the Speke obelisk. It was answered by a Blackcap.
Another Blackcap sang near the bridge.
Just along the path a Long-Tailed Tit arrived with midges for its nest in the brambles, but couldn't go there ...
... because a Magpie was watching from the top of the holly tree, eager to find and raid the nest. I bribed the Magpie with a peanut to go away.
A pair of Jackdaws perched in the old Field Maple near the leaf yard.
A pretty pale Feral Pigeon was in the crowd milling around at the Triangle car park.
The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull was in his usual place near the Dell restaurant.
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An interesting picture from Theodore Margaroli: the local pair of Peregrines mating on the antennae at the top of the barracks tower where they usually perch on a ledge.
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And another fine picture from Virginia: the two young Grey Herons practising their display on one of the wire baskets around the island.
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Rival Great Crested Grebes chased each other on the Serpentine.
For some time a pair of grebes have wanted to nest against the net surrounding the reed bed east of the Lido, but a Coot kept claiming the site. They have settled down to an uneasy truce nesting side by side. The Coots' nest is much better built as usual, and uses reeds easily got from the other side of the net. But both of them have foolishly nested outside the net when it would be much safer inside.
The grebes nesting on the Long Water do understand about using reeds.
The dominant female Mute Swan on the nesting island in the Long Water turned over her eggs and settled down again.
The single Mandarin drake caught flies near the small boathouses, and the pair stood on the shore in the debris of an unsuccessful swan nest.
Cowslips and bluebells near the bridge.
Would the Magpie of eating the young chicks/eggs in the Long-Tailed Tits nest??
ReplyDeleteSean
I said so. If you must keep asking all these questions, do read the blog and then try to ask sensible ones.
DeleteThey will be best of neighbours the Coot and Grebe. Do you think if one was to wonder off the other would steal some twigs off their nest?? It would be quite irresistible for them, I would imagine.
ReplyDeleteSean
Look how much happiness and peace of mind can be procured at the cost of one peanut: the magpie's, the long tailed tit's, and certainly ours.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the fine sighting of the very pretty Whitethroat. How did you manage to find it?
Tinúviel
Something flew into the bush, I think a Wren. I looked with binoculars to see if it was visible, and found the Whitethroat instead. So I hastily took some quite distant pictures before it flew off.
DeleteI fear the magpie was soon back, trying to watch more covertly.
ReplyDeleteAgreed a great capture of the Whitethroat, showing more detail than I've ever been able to observe on them with binoculars.
Side by side nesting with other species is the closest both the grebes and coots will get to safety in numbers at it, and I hope they realise it. Any coots fairly close to a swan or goose nest probably have the masterstroke, provided neither of the larger bird pair bears a grudge against them, as they would discover soon enough while nest-building.
Great capture also of different flycatching modes of Mandarins. Jim
I'm not sure how long that grebe-Coot arrangement will last. They seem to be inveterate enemies, and if the grebe has chicks I think the Coot will attack them.
DeleteEarlier in the year I managed to save an Egyptian gosling elsewhere from an attacking coot by landing a twig on the latter. Needless to say the Egyptian parents had been hopeless for it to get to this. They lost ten of a brood of eleven in no time, and I think the last only lived a few weeks. Jim
DeleteThe first Egyptian pair to arrive in the park, I think 23 years ago, never brought up a single gosling that survived in the following 21 years till they gave up from old age -- they are both dead now. Their only descendant was a gosling that wandered away from its negligent parents and was found by two Thai girl tourists and given to another family who adopted it. You could tell it because it was blonde like its mother. We called the parents Mr and Mrs Hopeless; they lived in the Italian Garden.
DeleteThe pair I refer to were in Golders Hill Park, on their very first brood, being the third generation of the pioneering dynasty of Egyptians there, according to a lady who follows them closely. The parents seemed agitated and distracted at the time, but there were no rival birds in sight and I could not spot any predator as such either. Jim
DeleteGood to see the Whitethroat. When I returned to my Sunday patch last weekend there were several back & also heard my first singing Lesser Whitethroat, though these are much trickier to see!
ReplyDeleteI see a Lesser was seen at Walthamstow. I've never knowingly seen one.
DeleteBest thing Ralph is to familiarise yourself with the distinctive song as they often sing from cover & tend to favour taller bushes than Common Whitethroat.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I have the Collins Guide on my phone so I can look up songs on the hoof.
DeleteI found the Whitethroat near the Speke monument this morning early.
ReplyDeleteTheodore
That's a long way from the Rose Garden, so I guess it was a different one.
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