Seconds after I took this picture of the female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery she was attacked by a Magpie and fled to a distant tree ...
... but when I came back a couple of hours later she was back home, looking down suspiciously from the upper entrance of her nest hole. It's a hard life being an owl, all the other birds hate you.
Yes, you had a video of this Song Thrush at the Henry Moore sculpture only two days ago, but when a bird is singing as well as this you just have to film it again.
It was the turn of a Jay to pose in the forsythia blossom at Mount Gate ...
... while the Blue Tit had moved to the dogwood bush ...
... along with a Robin.
Both Coal Tits were at the top of a tree.
I thought this Wood Pigeon was eating the withered berries on a patch of ivy at Peter Pan, but a closer look shows it was eating the leaves which must be quite tough.
A Feral Pigeon on a post had sought a mate exactly the same colour as himself, which they tend to do.
There were no other Pied Wagtails in sight, but this male on a moored pedalo was constantly twittering. You couldn't really call it a song, as their usual flight call is much the same. The sound is quite far-carrying, so maybe he was trying to attract a mate. Or maybe he was just talking to himself.
One of the young Grey Herons was standing on a log on the island.
Pigeon Eater stood in a group of Egyptian Geese, of which there are a large number at the east end of the Serpentine.
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With Egyptians it's the females that make the most noise, and these two were really yelling at each other. The mate of the lower one, farther down the tree, took no part in the altercation.
Another stood on top of a sawn-off horse chestnut tree, which was sprouting fresh leaves.
Horse chestnuts come into leaf early, which is good for the Little Owls at the Round Pond who are surrounded by these trees and will soon have some privacy when perching in the open. But the pair at the Serpentine Gallery will have to wait several weeks, as sweet chestnuts are slow to put out leaves.
The Black Swan and his girlfriend were back at the place east of the Lido where they might, just might, decide to nest.
Two Mandarin drakes and a female stood on the shore at the Lido restaurant terrace.
A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee rested on a birch log at Peter Pan.
There can never be enough Song Thrush's song. In this case there can never be too much of a good thing.
ReplyDeleteAristotle was the first to notice that owls seemed to engender a lot of ill will among their bird neighbours of all species. I don't think I have ever read a convincing explanation of why.
Tinúviel
I suppose smaller birds than owls fear that their babies will be predated, while corvids will attack absolutely anything. But humans also despise owls, perhaps because they are nocturnal and have strange cries and staring eyes. In the Old Testament no scene of desolation is complete without at least one owl. When my father was in Iraq he discovered that the standard insult was أنت البومة, ent el-boumah, 'Thou art the owl'. Yet owls are useful to humans, eating pests, and should be treasured.
DeleteAnyone who lived in fear of being snatched by an owl at night, as small birds do, would get pretty agitated if s/he saw one in the daytime - as most birds do.
DeleteIt'd be really interesting to know just what central London owls prey on. I've found references to a study of tawny owls in Holland Park (do these still exist?) that found a large proportion of their prey was birds.
Some years ago the British Mammal society examined the pellets of the Tawny Owls that were in Kensington Gardens for so long. They found that the owls' diet was mainly house mice, which swarm in the park, and some wood mice and a few small young rats. Only one bird bone was found, from a fairly large species so it was most likely carrion. But that was before the parakeets got so numerous. When the owls had owlets they needed to hunt in the day and were taking parakeets, and I have pictures of two owlets eating the top and bottom halves of a parakeet that the parent had somehow managed to tear in two.
DeleteI'm speaking off memory here, but I read that Europe-wide research into owl diet via pellet dissection revealed a very large proportion of mice, voles, and large orthoptera, but few birds.
DeleteTinúviel
The Little Owls here might catch grasshoppers in their hunts at dawn and dusk. They can't hunt when the park is open to humans, though they would if they got the chance. As far as I know, no one has surveyed their pellets, just the Tawnies.
DeleteAbsolutely beautiful sightings. Love it how you show wonderful nature on our doorstep!
ReplyDeleteThank you, whoever you are.
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