There was a good view of the female of the pair of Little Owls near the Ranger's Cottage. She is probably the grandaughter of the first pair of Little Owls to arrive in the park in December 2011.
She enjoyed a leisurely preen.
A Chiffchaff flitted about in the same tree.
A Blue Tit pecked delicately at a pine nut in a hawthorn tree in the Rose Garden.
A Long-Tailed Tit passed through the tree, but they are not interested in being fed by humans (with the notable exception of one in St James's Park which comes to Mark Williams's hand for bits of suet).
A pair of Coal Tits appeared in a small cedar on the lawn between the Rose Garden and the Dell. They may be the ones normally seen inside the Dell.
The male Chaffinch in Kensington Gardens accosted me as I was gtoing to the Round Pond ...
... and his mate turned up on the way back.
The Robin at the southwest corner of the bridge was waiting on the railings.
Ahmet Amerikali got a fine shot of a Wren at the other end of the bridge.
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A Starling preening on an umbrella at the Lido restaurant was knocked off its perch by another, but carried on.
I was fairly sure that a third brood of Grey Heron chicks had hatched in the highest of the nests on the island, and today brought the first sound and a rather obstructed sight of them. One chick is easy to see in this video, and the other is intermittently visible below and to the right of its parent.
The three young herons in the east nest are beginning to look slightly more grown up.
Another picture by Ahmet: a Great Crested Grebe catching a perch under the parapet of the Italian Garden.
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The dominant pair of Mute Swans on the Long Water were settling down on the artificial nesting island. This involves restlessly tearing up all the plants.
The Egyptian Geese on the Serpentine are still holding on to their last two chicks. A pair of Gadwalls cruised by harmlessly.
The male Egyptian under the Henry Moore sculpture was alone again. It looks as if his mate is having another try at nesting after her recent failure.
A female Hairy-Footed Flower Bee browsed on spring crocuses near the Physical Energy statue.
It seems the majority of Egyptian Geese are a bit reckless when it comes to their offspring.
ReplyDeleteI do envy your leisure of birding, strolling through nature as one, It definelty beats being apart of the never ending rat race we are all wired into. Oh well, one more day down to retirement ay.
Sean
It takes me a good 7 hours a day in all to produce each blog post, 7 days a week, and I'm working every bit as hard as I did when I was 'employed'.
DeleteUnbelievable commitment and desire indeed! True treasure. One of a kind if you ask me, and we all appreciate such dedicated passion for others needs.
DeleteThank you.
DeleteThere's only one Ralph in the entire wide world, and there never will be anyone of his calibre.
DeleteTinúviel
Yes indeed.
ReplyDeleteImagine attending to all those feathers one by one. It's a miracle that there are enough hours in the day to keep them in top notch condition.
ReplyDeleteI may have asked this before, but no harm in doing so again: do we know where the original pair of Little Owls fly from in Dec 2011?
Tinúviel
(Google's incessant tinkering has just broken the 'Reply' link, so all new comments have to look as if they were made de novo.)
ReplyDeleteThe greatest number of feathers is that a a Whooper Swan, bigger than a Mute Swan: 25,000. I would reckon that a Mute Swan has 20,000.
No one knows where the pair of Little Owls that arrived in December 2011, or the three pairs that came in April 2012, originated. The nearest existing population was a small one in Regent's Park. Little Owls often escape notice, being small, retiring and well camouflaged. To find them you have to visit a place often and recognise their calls.