A female Blackbird carrying a worm paused for a moment on the pergola in the Rose Garden before flying off to a nest in one of the tall plane trees lining Rotten Row.
An unusually brown male Pied Wagtail hunted along the edge of the Serpentine.
(Update: Tom points out that it's a young bird, evidently from last summer.)
A Robin perched on the peculiar ridged twig of a Winged Elm beside the Long Water.
A fallen kerbstone in front of the statue of Peter Pan provides a place for Feral Pigeons to meet and bathe. The greasy powder on their feathers leaves trails in the water.
A Magpie perched on a stump in a patch of bluebells.
The male Peregrine was on the barracks tower. He is a dull and grubby-looking bird compared to his smart white-fronted mate.
The single young Grey Heron from outside the park stared from a post at the Serpentine island.
On the other side of the island the new chicks could be seen from across the lake.
But I think the heron with a red bill has given up the attempt to nest. It hasn't been there for two days.
The Coots' nest at the bridge is now over a foot tall. The chicks are going to have quite a climb to get back into it.
A pair of Canada Geese have hatched five new goslings, seen here near the boat hire platform. Most of the big geese have stopped breeding in the park because of the danger from the ever increasing number of Herring Gulls, and now breed in safer places and bring their young in as soon as they can fly.
The Egyptian Geese near the small boathouses are still hanging on to their eight goslings. These are surviving longer than usual on the dangerous lake because they are very obedient and come their mother when called. Also these are the only Egyptians in the area, the rest being farther along the shore to the east, so there are none of those territorial disputes that cause the parents to leave their young.
An Egyptian posed grandly on a dead tree near the Speke obelisk.
The Italian Garden pools are beginning to be covered with smelly brown algae. It suited a midge anyway.
The blue flowers of a Ceanothus bush in the Rose Garden attracted several Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.
This Common Carder bee was climbing up a reed stem by the Diana fountain, a long way from the nearest flower.
Hi Ralph. The dad of the Canada goslings isn't their biological one. He chased off the biological dad from the nesting space and for a while they both guarded the nest but now the uncle won and has the privilege to raise the goslings. His female is now mated with the biological dad of the goslings and they are nearby. So basically a wife swap.
ReplyDeleteJenna
Thanks. The idea of geese and swans being faithful to their mates has certainly been given a battering by looking at their behaviour in the park in recent years.
DeleteCanadas' social interactions make my brain hurt (btw the Canada goslings videos is repeated twice, in lieu of the bathing pigeons video).
ReplyDeleteWhat unusual brown coloration in that Wagtail. I don't think I've ever seen the like of it.
Tinúviel
Thanks for pointing out the wrong video. Too easy to click on the wrong thing in a list. The bathing pigeons video is staying pixelated till almost the last moment, but they tend to improve with time and viewing. I do wish it were possible to make YT videos do what Vimeo does, where you wait for the video to load and it's then shown as it ought to be. But, as you know, I had a very bad experience with Vimeo's appalling customer service and will never touch it again.
DeleteI think that Pied Wagtail is really 'Brown', in the geneticists' sense of lacking a gene for making the usual amount of black eumelanin, so that the ginger phaeomelanin shows through.