A milder day started Song Thrushes singing by the Henry Moore sculpture ...
... and the Speke obelisk.
A mixed flock of Long-Tailed Tits ...
... and Blue Tits bounced around in a tree at the southeast corner of the bridge ...
... checking the twigs for small larvae.
There were also plenty of Blue Tits in the Rose Garden. It seems that their numbers are increasing slightly, though Great Tits will always be in the majority.
Also in the Rose Garden, the female Chaffinch ...
... and a Robin arrived to be fed.
They are hard to feed, since both will only take pine nuts thrown on the ground, which gets crowded with Feral Pigeons the moment you start.
The female Chaffinch in Kensington Gardens is now getting confident, and more adept at catching pine nuts thrown in the air.
The Robin by the Buck Hill shelter is easy to satisfy, as it comes at once to my hand.
An increasing number of Robins will do this, and today I had a new one by the Speke obelisk. I didn't photograph it because I didn't want to put it off.
Another Robin, in an olive tree by the Lido restaurant, chattered irritably at something that displeased it and flew off.
The little pots of tartare sauce served with fish and chips at the restaurant are much liked by Starlings. Here are two pots and two Starlings at work on them.
Also here, the giant flower pots have been planted with ornamental willow bushes that have put out pretty pink catkins.
The Grey Heron chick or chicks in the upper nest on the island still can't be seen over the high edge of the nest, but the noise of begging is getting louder every day. A parent attended to the nest.
There is no visible progress in the nest at the east end of the island, but a heron could be seen still sitting.
One of last year's young herons on the dead willow tree under the Italian Garden was looking remarkably tatty. To be fair, it was in the middle of preening.
The goddess on the Huntress fountain has to put up with all kinds of birds on her head, but a Herring Gull was an unusual load.
Roman statues placed outdoors used to have a meniscus, a little metal umbrella-hat, installed on their head to shield them from bird droppings. It would look very odd to us, but the Romans were used to it and didn't notice it. When statues are shown in Roman wall paintings the meniscus is usually omitted, but there is one painting, a forum scene, where it appears. Foolishly, when I saw a picture of this on the web I didn't save it and I can't find it now.
There seems to be just one Shoveller drake left on the lake. It was feeding at the Lido restaurant.
There are also a few on the Round Pond, but all the others have left.
Amazing video of the Blue Tit's athletics. There certainly are Olympic sports less demanding.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the meniskos is that many now doubt its existence.. Our knowledge of it stems from a poorly understood joke in Aristophanes' Birds. Some posit that it was just a set of spikes, some that it was a small umbrella-like attachment, some that it never existed at all.
Tinúviel
How I wish I could find an image of that wall painting again. I am certain of what I saw, which was of a statue in an open-air city setting topped with a little gilded metal structure like a Japanese umbrella slightly wider than its head, and set on a stalk to raise it clear so that it didn't look like an undersized coolie hat. At any rate, surely some surviving statues should have a hole in the top of their head where the device was attached. Or maybe not as fallen statues outdoors would have been found and destroyed by medieval lime burners, while indoor statues might have been saved by being buried in the collapse of the building.
DeleteLovely shot of the drake Shoveler. Shame many of yours are gone. Normally at Ruislip Lido we get good numbers but I've mainly seen just the one while we've had the highest number of Gadwall (160+) & Wigeon (30+) I can recall. Diving duck numbers have also been on the low side.
ReplyDeleteFor interest your pretty willow is Salix gracilistyla "Mount Aso".
It's odd the way our Shovellers behave, arriving in late autumn and mostly only staying until midwinter. Maybe something to do with the seasonal food supply?
DeleteThanks for the information about the willow.
I believe Shoveler numbers tend to peak in the autumn & many head south after.
ReplyDeleteThey're just using the park as a changing room to put on their smart feathers.
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