The young Grey Herons have come down from their nest for the first time. One of them explored the island. It's not very good at flying yet but it gets around.
A Song Thrush sang by the busy path between the Peter Pan statue and the Italian Garden.
This is the second day I've heard this bird call in the shrubbery below the Triangle car park. The bird remains invisible and I'm not sure whether the call comes from the medium-sized nest you can see. I don't know what it is, and neither does the Merlin app. Can anyone identify it?
Ahmet Amerikali got a good shot of one of the Long-Tailed Tits in the Rose Garden bringing insects to the nest.
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The female Little Owl at the Round Pond was in the small lime tree where both of them often perch.
On the ground below a female Magpie fluttered her wings, calling to her mate to feed her. Sometimes they do this for me, to get a peanut.
A Rose-Ringed Parakeet couldn't get into a Blue Tit box. The metal reinforcement of the hole is to stop woodpeckers from cutting their way in and eating the chicks.
The Great Crested Grebe chick on the Long Water was resting quietly beside a parent.
Last year the Coots' nest under the bridge had 18 eggs in it, laid by two different females who had an uneasy cooperation. It looks as if it's happened again this year. You can see 11 eggs here, with probably 3 or 4 more behind the Coot ...
... and two chicks have already hatched.
A Moorhen walked around the planter in the Italian Garden where the latest Coot nest is, probably deliberately to annoy the sitting Coot. The two species hate each other for no clear reason.
In the early afternoon the Black Swan was wandering round the Serpentine alone, hooting pathetically. Two hours later he was side by side with his girlfriend. Their on-off relationship is puzzling.
A stupid woman urged her dog into the lake beside a Mute Swan, which luckily was more than equal to seeing it off.
An Egyptian Goose was alone on the swans' nesting island in the Long Water. Is this the male of the Italian Garden pair, with the female now nesting in a tree?
The foxes in the Dell groomed each other, getting a light snack of fleas.
Two Brimstone butterflies courted on the lawn by the Henry Moore sculpture. The female is slightly paler. Originally I thought it was two males fighting, but I have been corrected.
There are many varieties of Salvia in the park, all much liked by Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.
The enormous flower bud of a Giant Onion, Allium giganteum, as big as a cricket ball, in the Rose Garden was just opening.
Latin dancing in the Hyde Park bandstand, a splendid way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Ralph, your Brimstones are a courting pair. The upper butterfly is significantly paler & is a female. I've seen a female in my garden the last 3 days. The behaviour shown in your excellent video is typical of courting behaviour in this species.
ReplyDeleteYesterday she spent some time nectaring from some Red Campion, the previous day seemed intent on laying eggs on a Mediterranean buckthorn, Rhamnus alaternus. Unlike our native species, this shrub is evergreen. I used to have an Alder Buckthorn but died on me a couple of years back.
Thank you for the correction. I though female Brimstones were paler than that, almost white, but happy to know otherwise. I was very surprised that I got enough video with reasonable focus on these little creatures whirling around. Usually the autofocus picks up the background and the butterflies are a blur, but here I was lucky.
DeleteThey do seem to vary a bit. Sometimes they do appear quite whitish. Maybe light conditions can alter perception too?
DeleteYes indeed, and they were a long way off against a dark green background. Also, you see one thing but the automatic brightness and colour compensation of a digital camera see something quite different. I often have to spend quite a time balancing a picture or a video so that it looks like what I remember seeing.
DeleteHi Ralph. We are big fans of your blog, and live right next to Hyde park. Could you give us some tips in locating the Little Owl by the Round Pond. Which dead tree / lime tree does she nest in?
ReplyDeleteI don't put the location on the blog to avoid the owls being overwhelmed by visitors. Please write to me at the address given on the web versiuon of the blog.
DeleteThe mystery bird seems to be some kind of passerine which is begging for food. I dont know what it may be but it is probably between Chaffinch, Blackbird, Robin, Blackcap or some kind of finch. I excluded Great Tit, Blue Tit and Long-Tailed Tit based on the type of nest and I think that Robins, Blackcaps and Chaffinches probably also don't build one similar but I am not so sure about those.
ReplyDeleteTheodore
Managed to identify it by climbing into the bushes for a better recording, then using Merlin. It's a young Great Spotted Woodpecker.
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