Two female Wigeon, only occasional visitors to the park, have flown on to the Round Pond.
The Little Owl is still coming out in the horse chestnut tree, though there are now few leaves to give her any cover.
A Wren climbed a tree beside the Henry Moore sculpture ...
... with a Robin singing on a branch.
A Robin in the North Flower Walk was at a little hole in a tree that fills with rainwater and gives it a place to drink.
The Chaffinch pair in the Rose Garden were waiting in a hawthorn tree.
Looking up the lake you could see a crowd of Cormorants on the fallen Lombardy poplar. with more flying in.
On the far side of the water a young Grey Heron was surprised by a Cormorant popping up next to it.
Some idiot let his dog jump into the water, where the violent boss Mute Swan's family had come to beg food from the visitors. The young ones are just as aggressive as their father, and soon put it to rout. The adult swan here is their mother, also a tough customer.
Pigeon Eater landed on the roof of the Dell restaurant and made sure everyone knew he was there. There was no sign of his rival.
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The Lesser Black-Backed Gull at the Lido was still balancing on the buoy, beside two Common Gulls and two Black-Headed Gulls.
The dominant Black-Headed Gull on the landing stage has grown considerably more of its dark head feathers since I last photographed it on the 8th.
I went back to the Round Pond just before sunset to see if the Little Owl had got into an interesting place, but as I arrived she was displaced by a pair of Magpies and retired to her hole. The Magpies preened to congratulate themselves.
Starlings flew into a tree to roost.
Two Coots fought in the sunset, watched by their mates.
Presumably the LBB's buoy is more stable being on a bend in the rope and given its point of contact with the next buoy, helped by leverage from the gull's weight. Jim
ReplyDeleteAnd the corners are anchored to the bottom. Anyway, the gull has found it suitable and stays there.
DeleteSadly dog owners in Hyde Park are more responsible than many other places - I sometimes go to Keston Common (nowhere near as good as hyde park but close to me) and so many dog owners let their dogs in the pond. I don't tell them off.
ReplyDeleteDog owners' conduct has deteriorated everywhere. Up to and right through WWII the grass in the park was kept short by a flock of sheep. Imagine that now.
ReplyDeleteIf even the mother is so aggressive, I shudder to think what the cygnets are going to turn out like, aggression-like. But in cases such as this all those murderous instincts are for the good.
ReplyDeleteAristotle remarked on the enmity of Little Owls and corvids. For centuries people thought it was a folktale.
Tinúviel
Aristotle would have had plenty of opportunity to observe the enmity between Little Owls and corvids. But in the Middle Ages, people stopped looking and turned to the ludicrous legends of bestiaries where every creature's behaviour was distorted to serve a devotional purpose.
DeleteHugh of Fouilloy in his Aviarium says of the owl:
Its appearance is reported with great clamour by other birds; they also harass it with frequent attacks. For if a sinner comes near the light of knowledge, he furnishes a great opportunity for scorn to those behaving properly. And when he has been openly observed in sin, he hears words of rebuke from others. The pluck out his feathers and wound him with their beaks, because those behaving properly rebuke the carnal deeds of a sinner, and condemn excess. The owl is therefore said to be unhappy, because he who is engaged in these things which we have noted is unhappy.
Lovely new record for the park in the form of a Knot. I think it was back in September it was also a new species for Richmond Park. With the upper pond being drained there was a whole procession of waders there- I think one day had about 7 wader species including a small group of Ringed Plovers.
ReplyDeleteI had one on my WeBS patch on the Thames at Barnes many years back.
I think we get these stray shorebirds because the Albert Memorial is a way marker on migration routes. Mostly, though, they turn up on the Round Pond because it's more visible from there than the tree-fringed main lake.
DeleteInteresting. Thanks, Ralph.
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