An incredible 40 days since they started sitting, the Grey Herons on the nest at the east end of the island have a chick. The normal incubation time is 25 to 26 days, but herons start sitting as soon as they have one egg so chicks hatch at intervals. I'd guess this one is a week old, but there has been no sound from it until today, when it made a faint clacking with its bill -- too faint for the microphone to register. The other parent flew in to admire it. You can just see the chick moving under the bird on the right.
It's circled in this still picture.
More good news: there was a pair in the nest at the west end, for the first time in weeks.
Only the continued presence of an adult shows that anything is happening in the upper nest where we know at least one chick hatched some weeks ago. But heron nests are like that: you give up hope and then they surprise you.
A Cormorant was reflected in the calm water under the Italian Garden.
It went fishing, and a heron hunting in the reeds glared resentfully at it because it was scaring the fish.
Pigeon Eater had eaten all he wanted from his latest victim and flown away, leaving another Lesser Black-Backed Gull to peck at the scanty remains.
There are still no Redwings on the Parade Ground. All I could see, apart from the ubiquitous Starlings, Wood Pigeons and various gulls, was a distant female Blackbird.
One of the Coal Tits in the Rose Garden looked down from the lime hedge before it flew to my hand.
A Blue Tit ...
... and a Robin were also waiting. This Robin was quite close to another with no sign of conflict. Mates are beginning to come together after their long separation.
A Blue Tit came out in the wintersweet bush at Mount Gate.
In the Flower Walk a Robin perched in the peculiar twigs of the corkscrew hazel bush.
The usual male Chaffinch was in a budding magnolia nearby.
His mate appeared later when I went past the Round Pond ...
... where there was a large crowd of Jackdaws eager for peanuts.
A tree is slowly engulfing the railings at the Triangle.
Excellent, excellent news! Goes on to show "birds" and "impossible" should never be together in a sentence.
ReplyDeleteIs the cold letting up? I see the magnolia trying to bloom and I wonder if it's brave or foolish of it.
Tinúviel
Yes, it was really cheering to see this. I had given up hope after 40 days.
DeleteThe cold does seem to be letting up, but February may have a nasty surprise in store. (And March, and April, and May.)
From how the picture looks to me, maybe the Cormorant is helping the Heron as fish will flee in the latter's direction. Jim
ReplyDeleteThat might indeed happen, but I don't think two species would deliberately cooperate. Cormorants do fish together to help each other in that way, but not to help herons.
DeleteGood news on the Herons.
ReplyDeleteRedwings don't seem as widely dispersed this winter as many other years. I've seen a couple of large groups recently (Kew Gardens & Ruislip Woods) but generally I'm not seeing them or just very small numbers. A couple of weekends ago a group of us had along weekend in Norfolk & surrounding counties, birding all day & didn't see a single Redwing & just one Fieldfare.
There were about a dozen Redwings in Kensington Gardens and I expected them to move to the Parade Ground when it was clear, but so far they haven't. Not a single Fieldfare here for several years.
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