A Blackbird collected worms for his nestlings in the Dell. The method is to find and pull up several worms and leave them -- they won't dig back in immediately -- and then rush around picking them up.
Another Blackbird sang in a treetop near the obelisk commemorating John Hanning Speke, the 19th century explorer of Africa who didn't discover the source of the Nile. He did manage to be the first European to see Lake Victoria.
A Starling in the next tree was bringing a caterpillar to its nest.
A Greenfinch sang its peculiar wheezing song on top of a hawthorn tree near Peter Pan, surprisingly without opening its beak. The commotion at 14 seconds is a Great Tit impatient with me filming and wanting to be given a pine nut.
A Wren sang while leaping around in a bush in the Rose Garden.
A Great Tit perched in the hawthorn bush by the leaf yard that seems to have both pink and white flowers. If you look more closely you can see that it's two separate bushes growing inches apart which have intertwined.
A female Pied Wagtail trotted through the daisies in the Diana fountain enclosure. There were several of them hunting insects here.
Many species of bird like dandelion leaves, and if you see Rose-Ringed Parakeets or Wood Pigeons feeding on the ground that's always what they're eating.
In the first 10 seconds of this video you can hear in close succession the songs of a Robin, Cetti's Warbler, Blackcap and Song Thrush.
The Grey Heron chicks on the island are growing fast. I couldn't catch them both looking out of the nest at the same time.
The seven Egyptian goslings lead a perilous life. Their parents were taking them across the open lake.
The single gosling at the Lido was on the grassy bank with its mother ...
... the five Mallard ducklings were on the shore ...
... beside a preening Mandarin drake ...
... and the single duckling was farther out but still close to its mother.
But sadly the Greylags have lost two goslings overnight and are down to three.
The main difference in danger is that the Greylags are at the east end of the Serpentine where the Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-Backs collect on the moored boats. There are only a few gulls between the island and the bridge.
A squirrel came down to the Serpentine shore to drink.
The 2024 Serpentine Gallery pavilion is going up. It's by the Korean architect Minsuk Cho and called 'Archipelagic Void', and its principal feature will be a hole in the middle. If you really want to, you can read about it and see pictures here.
Well, never mind its aesthetic qualities, what concerns me is that almost none of the designers of the pavilions have any conception of what a temporary building is. Here we have massive concrete foundations and steelwork that look as if they were meant to last centuries. But the thing is only going to be open from June to October.
Lovely video of the pesky Parakeet behaviour! Never seen this before. Them on the ground like that would have made a great image at eye level.
ReplyDeleteWith the Blackbirds method of excavating the worms, it certainly has its risks. Any bright bird would snap up an easy meal of it. The opportunist Carrion Crow comes to mind, and most probably sit and watch for it’s striking chance.
Sean
High time they stopped defiling The Gardens/Hyde Park with rubbish in the name of Art. Haven't forgotten the random pieces of plywood and rusty metal, the bird made out of slate or - in particular - the London Mastaba: who the hell thinks 7,200 plastic barrels bolted together is Art??
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the Serpentine Gallery is a centre of the latest and most extreme silliness. Just occasionally a pavilion appears that is of some use, probably to their disappointment: last year's by Lina Ghotmeh was attractive, clever in its cantilevered roof, light and made of wood, and its layout of seating with a long communal table forced people to take some notice of each other rather than bury themselves in phones and iPads. I also liked Toyo Ito's pavilion of 2002, a genuinely amusing building -- but that was an awfully long time ago.
DeleteAnd what are they going to do afterwards? Concrete and steel look as permanent as they come.
ReplyDeleteThat Great Tit was sounding mighty imperious, dictatorial even.
Tinúviel
They'll take months to demolish the thing with pneumatic hammers and heavy machinery.
DeleteThat Great Tit actually landed on my camera, someone watching said. Evidently not while I was filming, or the thump would be on the soundtrack.