There was a lot of activity around the Little Owls' tree at the Round Pond. At our first visit the owl was out of sight, driven into the hole by a Magpie on the nest tree.
Then a Hobby flew out of a nearby tree, and Tom got a good picture of it. (I didn't -- I was having camera trouble.)
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I've had a report of conflict between a Hobby and a Kestrel here. I'm pretty sure the Hobby pair are nesting outside the park this year, as I have been visiting this place daily and haven't heard the distinctive fast 'ki-ki-ki' call of a Hobby, though I have heard the slower and lower pitched call of a Kestrel several times. I think the Hobby had come into the park to hunt dragonflies, and Swifts if there were any, which there weren't today.
We came back later. Carefully approaching from a distance, we saw an owlet looking out of the hole. It went back in before we got any nearer.
The male little Owl had been hunting in the daytime, something he would do only to feed chicks as he is very shy of people and dogs when on the ground. Tom got a picture of him with what looks like a beetle on a branch of the nest tree.
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The owl was not at all pleased to see us and shouted angrily from a horse chestnut. He will usually tolerate me when I come alone, but several people alarm him.
Otherwise it was an uneventful day, but there was plenty of ordinary life to see. A Wren sang on a post beside the Long Water.
A young Robin basked in the sunshine in a flower bed in the Flower Walk.
Near the leaf yard a Blackbird preened on a twig ...
... and a Chaffinch and a Greenfinch looked at each other in a treetop.
A Jackdaw at Queen's Gate waited patiently for a peanut.
Someone was feeding strawberries to the Rose-Ringed Parakeets. In their usual wasteful style they tended to take just one bite and drop it.
A Grey Heron surveyed the scene from a post beside the Vista.
The Coots nesting at the Dell restaurant are mad about menus and have plastered their nest with them. They should have chicks any time now.
The eldest Greylag goslings are beginning to get a grown-up look ...
... but the newest are still tiny.
The four Mallard ducklings are now healthy teenagers and are beginning to grow flight feathers.
A female Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonfly landed on a tree in the Flower Walk.
Very nice selection of photos, especially the blackbird 😀
ReplyDeleteThanks. I'm particularly fond of Blackbirds.
DeleteMaybe the soon-to-be-hatched little Coots will have a life as chefs ahead of them. God knows the material for learning is there for them to learn from the cradle, so to speak!
ReplyDeleteTinúviel
If they do, they'll know an awful lot about pizza and burgers. This is not a Michelin starred establishment, though it is startling expensive like all the places in the park which benefit from a lack of nearby rivals and the naivety of tourists.
DeleteThe Hobby is really exciting! Do you think they would stay near the Round Pond? This morning I went to the park (exams are over!) and found some of the Emperor Dragonflies that I have been looking for and I actually got pictures of them on Buck Hill. They do land! I took photos of them flying and sitting on grass. There are also lots of small butterflies and some goldfinches, greenfinches and a wood warbler near the Speke Monument.
ReplyDeleteHave you found the new batch of mallard chicks in the Italian Gardens?
As I waited for something to appear at the Italian Gardens, a small family of Reed Warblers popped out of the Reeds and stopped right below me! I also saw the Little Owl for the second time ever!
Thank you for all the information you post here!
Theodore
Thanks for the information about the Mallard ducklings in the Italian Garden. Going to look for them now.
DeleteLovely pose of the Little Owl & good to see the Hobby again. We saw one by the Peacock Tower at the London Wetland centre earlier in the week (if I'd gone a day later I might have seen the stunning male Citrine Wagtail?).
ReplyDeleteA good selection of insects. In my garden the Wool Carder Bees are very partial to the flowers of Purple Toadflax.
I think we've only got the yellow kind of Toadflax, in one of the wilder patches on Buck Hill.
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