The Rose-Ringed Parakeets are very fond of catalpa beans, though it takes a lot of work chewing open the pods to get at them.
A Robin in the Rose Garden came out of a flower bed to take pine nuts thrown on the ground.
However, attempts to interest the young Blackbirds in the Dell with raisins have failed. They are extremely nervous creatures and it takes a long time to realise that you are throwing raisins to them, not at them.
A Long-Tailed Tit perched on a dead branch.
The Coal Tit at Mount Gate is completely assured and comes to my hand, though it dislikes being photographed first.
The Little Owl at the Round Pond was in her usual horse chestnut tree but almost entirely screened by leaves. I came back later and got a slightly better picture.
There were two young Grey Herons at the Henry Moore sculpture, circling each other warily. The adult who owns the territory was away again, but no doubt will reclaim it in due course.
The three young herons were in their nest. The biggest one was restless and kept flapping, while the other two just stood there. Let's hope they show a bit of enterprise soon.
On a sunny Saturday with a swimming event taking place on the lake, the park was crowded. Pigeon Eater took no notice of the passing throng as he enjoyed a late lunch on the edge.
A Great Crested Grebe chick told its mother to wake up and go fishing.
There's no sign of hatching yet in the two Coot nests on the Long Water. The Coot at Peter Pan is constantly haunted by a Black-Headed Gull, a nuisance but not actually a danger.
A Gadwall drake looked quietly elegant in the water nearby.
There were still a couple of Migrant Hawker dragonflies to be seen at the Italian Garden.
The pink flower heads of stonecrop by the Diana fountain attracted a lot of Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.
There was also a small bee which I think is a Colletes species. Later: Conehead 54 reckons that it's a male Ivy Bee, C. hederae, off its normal ivy.
Several Speckled Wood butterflies were flying around near Peter Pan. One settled on a poplar leaf.
This leaf was twisted upside down, so the butterfly was standing on the lower surface. You can see that it's speckled with small yellow encrustations. They cause yellow spots to appear on the upper surfaces of the leaves.
I looked this up and it seems to be a fungus, Poplar Leaf Rust, Melampsora larici-populina.
What's the park goers' usual reaction when they see Pigeon Eater doing his thing? I should imagine lots of horrified reactions.
ReplyDeleteTinúviel
Hardly anyone notices. In the course of making the original video, which took a lot of filming over several years, I did hear occasional shrieks of horror, but not often.
DeleteThe Gadwall does look pretty handsome here, Ralph. I was leading an LNHS walk at Ruislip yesterday I was surprised to see 42 Gadwall yesterday as well as 2 Wigeon, a far less regular species here.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Colletes. Suspect a male C. hederae as they do sometimes visit species other than Ivy, though the females seem more restricted to it.
Such a beautiful day yesterday. It was good to see so many butterflies & dragonflies.
The Gadwall population in the park varies randomly as they fly in from other parks, but seldom exceeds 20. The same with Red-Crested Pochards, but the Common Pochards are genuinely wild and migratory. We have a lot of these at the moment.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the identification of the bee. I have seen an Ivy Bee in the park before, but it was in ivy which made things easier.