Young Carrion Crows have to learn how to shell peanuts, which they do by watching their parents and then by trial and error. This one in the Italian Garden fountains nearly managed to do it, but lost patience and gave up.
Having tried and failed, it went back to a parent and begged loudly to be fed.
The male Little Owl at the Round Pond was in the dead tree outside the hole in the sawn-off branch.
He was in a tolerant mood and allowed me to film him preening.
I didn't come very close to this owlet at the Serpentine Gallery ...
... but I was still warned off by its fiercely protective father.
The Peregrines on the tower had reverted to their old distant ways and were preening on either side of the central division, out of sight of each other.
A family of Long-Tailed Tits passed through the trees at the east end of the Lido. The young ones are beginning to look more like adults.
There aren't usually many Lesser Black-Backed Gulls on the lake, but there was a little band of them perched on the pedalos.
The pigeon eater's mate was enjoying her share of the latest kill.
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A Herring Gull snatched the end of a baguette which someone had thrown to the Canada Geese.
The male Great Crested Grebe was guarding the stolen nest at the Serpentine outflow in case a Coot should want to reclaim it.
While all the other pairs of Mute Swans have lost some cygnets, the ultra-aggressive dominant pair on the Serpentine have kept their six, which are now growing fast.
The oldest Greylag Goslings are now adult-size teenagers.
The youngest has a long way to go.
I think this moth seen behind the Albert Memorial is a Dark Arches, Apamea monoglypha.
A bee a short way off seems to be a Megachile species, but I can't find one with this orange tuft on the tip of the abdomen. Update: the orange is probably a bit of pollen it has picked up.
The pomegranate bush near the Big Bird statue is in flower. The top flower is already developing into a fruit.
Our pomegranates come out in October thereabouts. Are yours earlier?
ReplyDeleteThe patience on that Crow parent!
I wonder if aggressiveness would be deterrence enough against pike. It must be, for this pair to be so successful.
Tinúviel
It's a dwarf pomegranate bush and may not behave like the full-size one.
DeleteI think pike hang around the edge of the lake where there are overhanging bushes to give shade -- and which also attract the small fish that the pike prey on. That would be the case both on the Long Water and at the Serpentine island, where swans have suffered losses. The dominant pair on the Serpentine nested in a reed bed where there were no overhanging plants, so maybe this bit of water was free from pike.
Pike are well camouflaged ambush predators that lurk in slow, slack waters to reserve their energy, chasing fish. They also can detect movement on the surface and home in on it easy, with their large eyed sniper vision.
ReplyDeleteSean
Pomegranate is flowering at the end of May in Albania where I usually co-lead wildlife tours.
ReplyDeleteDelightful shots of the Little Owl. I did see one sitting on a post in Richmond Park yesterday.
Somebody on the Ealing Wildlife Group FB page reported in the borough of several Lesser Black-backs fly at a group of Feral Pigeons & apparently one was caught.
Agree with Dark Arches. The bee is a Megachile sp. I wonder if the orange markings at the end are in fact pollen?
Thanks. Duncan Campbell checked all likely Megachile species and also suggested that the orange patch might be pollen.
DeleteThat crow seems to be a bit of a slow learner... Love the little owls (of course)
ReplyDeleteIt always takes the young crows a while to learn how to shell peanuts. Not as easy as it looks when experienced adults do it in five seconds.
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