The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull's offspring should have been independent long ago, but his father has been too kind in letting him share pigeons and he has turned into a spoilt brat.
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He got so unbearable that he forced his father off his favourite perch on the Dell restaurant roof.
A young Herring Gull amused itself by diving in the shallows and bringing up dead leaves.
The female Little Owl at the Round Pond was looking out of her hole. She didn't stay on the edge for long, as a Magpie landed on a branch above and started chattering at her, so she went in.
Both Peregrines were on the barracks tower.
A Jackdaw looked down from an American oak tree, its leaves already turning a spectacular red.
Another autumn picture taken by Tom at Rainham Marshes: a Long-Tailed Tit among hawthorn berries.
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A Great Tit in the Rose Garden found a large seed on the ground and pecked a hole it it.
It took the seed up to a twig to dig out the contents.
A very young Rose-Ringed Parakeet, still with patches of grey down, ate an apple someone had stuck on the railings.
The single Great Crested Grebe chick from the nest at the east end of the island has been a pampered only child constantly fed by both parents, and has been fairly quiet till now. But they always go through a particularly noisy stage, and here it is begging non-stop. If the sound didn't come from the lake you'd think it was a car alarm going off.
The teenagers on the Long Water are losing their juvenile stripes. As their parents go into winter plumage it will soon be hard to tell them apart.
Gatherers had collected all the sweet chestnuts on the ground beside Rotten Row, so for the Greylags it was back to eating grass.
A Gadwall drake stood with a pair of Shovellers on the gravel strip in the Long Water.
It wasn't the Gadwall from the Italian Garden, who was in his usual place feeding among the water lilies.
There were few bees to see on a colder day, but a hardy Buff-Tailed Bumblebee was collecting pollen from an anemone.
Could be a daughter of the pigeon eater? Hard to differentiate sexes at that age.
ReplyDeleteGuessed to be male, as it's quite large.
DeleteI ate the chestnuts today but I certainly did not take all of them?
ReplyDeleteTheodore
You need to try harder.
DeletePerhaps Pigeon Eater sees something special in his young one that he hasn’t seen before in his offspring, hence putting up with his behaviour. He could well be getting him use to the taste of Pigeon for a reason..they could be a strong force in hunting allies, becoming the dominate Gulls with a plentiful food source of Pigeons to feast on.
ReplyDeleteThe training has begun.
Sean 😃
It's true that sentimentality is the other side of the same coin as brutality. Hence Pigeon Eater's oddly contrasting behaviour. Yup, I'm humanising him, but that's because he's very close to human in terms of behaviour, I think.
ReplyDeleteTinúviel
Or equating cruel and sentimental human behaviour with that of animals -- though that raises the Christian doctrine of sin. Even the horrible killer swan is sinless, because he has not eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
DeleteLovely shots as ever Ralph but the Jackdaw isn't in a Sweet Gum. It's one of the North American oaks- either a Scarlet or Pin Oak, but would need to see a leaf well to be sure which.
ReplyDeleteThanks. There are several kinds of trees in that place near the Vista planted to make a display of red leaves, and I get confused.
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