A Starling on the Lido restaurant terrace sang before flying off to raid a table.
Sheltering from a shower under the huge Caucasian Elm in the Rose Garden, I was joined by a Robin.
A male Blackbird in the Dell is very tatty around the head, no doubt as a result of feeding young. He will get new feathers in the autumn moult.
The female Little Owl at the Round Pond was in the top of the horse chestnut tree.
One of the two young Grey Herons on the Long Water perched elegantly in a dead tree.
The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull struck again when I was passing ...
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... and again it was his second kill of the day, because a short way up the shore a young Herring Gull was picking at the remains of the first one.
Another young Herring Gull was playing with a chestnut seed case at the island.
The Black-Headed Gull who dominates the landing stage at the Diana fountain hasn't been seen there recently. I've heard that he is now trying the make the roof of a boathouse his private domain. Today I found him not far away on the edge of the lake, with no other gulls within 50 yards so he must have been making his presence felt.
The single Great Crested Grebe chick from the east end of the island had been given a large fish, which it just managed to swallow.
The chicks from the middle of the Long Water already have crests.
Young Moorhens in the Italian Garden fountains amused themselves by climbing on the stems of Great Willowherb.
The youngest Mute cygnet on the Round Pond -- the one that walked up from the main lake with its mother -- is still undersized for its age, though it is beginning to stand up for itself when the other swans try to bully it. People are keeping an eye on it in case it needs help, but so far it seems to be all right.
An Egyptian Goose played with the rope of a lifebelt on the Serpentine. Like gulls, they find ropes and strings fascinating.
A squirrel picked the small nuts out of hornbeam seed clusters.
There is a hole on Buck Hill not far from the Italian Garden. It's the right size for a rabbit hole. Does this mean that some rabbits have survived, or it it just an old hole that hasn't collapsed yet? It doesn't look very used.
I think this wide flat bracket fungus on a tree near the Round Pond is Artist's Fungus, Ganoderrma applanatum. It has that name because you can draw pictures with a sharp point on the white underside which remain in sepia brown when the fungus is dried.
Pigeon Eater is truly living up to his name, what a beast of a bird and setting an example for the other Gulls to replicate. He truly has taken things into his own BEAK… Every now and then you come across a rare individual that has initiative and a trait like this needs to passed down to his offspring!
ReplyDeleteThe young Great Crested Grebes are starting to get that sophisticated look about them, with their mighty crest.
Sean 😃
Have you ever seen Pigeon Eater successfully hunt something that wasn't a pigeon? It seems he makes them his only prey. I bet parakeets would be easier to take.
ReplyDeleteTinúviel
My old film shows him eating a gosling, but that's easy prey. I don't think he could catch a parakeet unless he devised a trick to surprise it. They are very fast in a straight line, quicker than he can go.
DeletePresumably the squirrel is lactating. Jim
ReplyDeleteIt seems to have left breeding rather late.
DeleteI guess it’s just a matter of time before someone uses artist’s fungus to create an exhibition in the Serpentine Gallery…..
ReplyDeleteOh no! Figurative art is racist and patriarchalist. Let's have piles of dirty underclothes instead, so much more inclusive and diverse.
Delete:-)
DeleteInteresting watching the fascination of the Egyptian Goose with the ropes.
ReplyDeleteMostly seen with young Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-Backs, who can hardly pass a bit of string without pulling it to see what happens.
DeleteWhat an interesting fact about the mushrooms
ReplyDeleteTheodore
Didn't know till I looked it up. Drawing on mushrooms is not a mainstream amusement.
DeleteHi Ralph, just wondering if word had reached you about a pair of siskin that were being kept captive in a cage attached to a lamppost near Bayswater tube station? Went up there this morning to see if I could set them free, but mercifully, the cage had already been removed.
ReplyDeleteNo, I hadn't. Strange and cruel. I hope the Siskins were let out of the cage when it was taken down. They will be quite all right at this time of year as they are seed eaters.
Delete