Not so Common Terns

We don't often see Common Terns in the park. The fishing is good but there is nowhere to nest, and when several years ago a raft was put on the Long Water for them it was badly bungled and the terns scorned it. Today a pair arrived at Peter Pan. One perched on a post ...

... while the other flew up and down the Long Water. Later they were both flying over the Serpentine.

Before they nest, female Great Tits flutter their wings and twitter at their mates to beg for food, making sure that they will be fed when on the nest. But these two weren't begging at their mates, they were asking me directly to give them pine nuts -- which of course I did.

There was a family at Mount Gate with the young doing the same begging call. It's used by many songbirds, even Magpies, to mean 'Feed me!'

On the hill below the Round Pond, a Jackdaw strolled up with a lordly air to collect a peanut.

A Carrion Crow preened its mate in a treetop. This combines affection with a light snack, as they eat any fleas or lice that they find.

A crow on Buck Hill was panting to cool down on quite a warm day.

A Wood Pigeon eating unripe juneberries near the Lido reached too far and fell out of the bush.

I was premature in guessing that the female Little Owl at the Round Pond was nesting. She was out on her usual branch in the lime tree.

The female at the Serpentine Gallery was in the sweet chestnut where the pair's nest hole is.

The Mute Swan family on the Long Water were touting for food at the Vista. A silly dog owner let her dog run at themn, and the male saw it off very effectively.

The swan nesting in the reed bed by the Diana fountain landing stage has been there for more than six weeks. She looks comfortable but nothing seems to be happening.

The Mallard on the Round Pond was shepherding her six ducklings along the edge ...

... but the Mandarin ducklings were wandering around dangerously. There are now only three left.

A male Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonfly sunned himself on a chain at Peter Pan.

The conflict between the Wool Carder Bees and the Buff-Tailed Bumblebees in the patch of Lamb's Ears in the Rose Garden has quietened down, as the Buff-Tails have retreated to one end of the patch ...

... and the Wool Carders to the other, where they were now finding time to feed instead of fighting non-stop.

Tom was at Rainham Marshes and got a splendid picture of a male Bearded Tit flying off a reed.

Reed Warblers at work

A Reed Warbler under the Italian Garden collected insects for its chicks. We've seen this one with a ring several times before. So far I've been able to read the sequence B187 on the tiny ring, and hope to get the full number.

Ahmet Amerikali got a picture of a Reed Warbler in the Diana fountain reed bed with an unlucky Honeybee.

A male Blackbird was also foraging for the chicks near the Dell then, having done his duty, he relaxed with a song and a preen. This isn't the one that nests inside the Dell. The nest is in the bushes on the edge of the South Carriage Drive.

A female Great Tit at the southwest corner of the bridge was looking harassed with a chick yelling at her, one of a numerous brood that all have to be fed.

A Long-Tailed Tit at the other end of the bridge had caught a fly. Its tail is very worn and frayed, so this is probably a female that has been nesting.

There was a brief glimpse of a Jay bathing in the Huntress fountain in the Rose Garden.

A Jackdaw looked for insects on the gravel strip in the Round Pond.

But those were the only Jay and Jackdaw I saw all day. They're busy nesting and don't have time to hang around begging for peanuts.

The Grey Heron at the Lido restaurant checked a table to see if anything worth grabbing had been left on it, but was disappointed.

There is a mysterious heron which is seen around the nest on the Serpentine island where there are three chicks. It's too young to be a parent but older than the chicks, and is apparently a teenager from a previous nest. Today when the chicks were being fed it actually went into the nest, perhaps hoping to grab a share, before flying off.

This may be the heron I saw in an adjacent tree on Tuesday. If so, it's not from an unknown nest: we've already seen it growing up elsewhere.

Ahmet photographed a heron eating a small carp in the Italian Garden ...

... and also a Great Crested Grebe with a perch on the Serpentine.

Two other grebes were displaying near the bridge.

A Coot persisted with building a hopeless nest on the edge. It's been there for a week and still doesn't realise the futility of what it's doing.

The Black Swan had come down from the Round Pond to the Serpentine. He was alone and, seeing me, came over for some sunflower seeds. He would be much happier in St James's Park with the lone female Black Swan, but evidently he doesn't know about it or her. When he has left the park he has always gone in the other direction, up the river.

The Mandarin on the Round Pond led her four ducklings along the gravel strip.

The Mallard was looking after her six. Both sets are now beginning to grow but are still far from out of danger of being snatched by a gull.

Two Buff-Tailed Bumblebees browsed on a Lamb's Ears flower in the Italian Garden. It was a clump near the fountain, not the one where they get harassed by Wool Carder Bees.

An Emperor Dragonfly hunted over the reeds under the Italian Garden.

The mystery of ladybirds' wings

The small birds were mostly lurking in the leaves and could only be photographed in the shadows. A Wren near the Henry Moore sculpture nattered irritably at a Magpie.

A Blue Tit explored a plane tree in the Dell looking for larvae cliunging to the underside of the leaves.

A young Great Tit by the bridge waited in a bush to be fed.

A Coal Tit at Mount Gate perched under the leaves of a buckthorn tree.

This Robin, one of the pair that have nested here, is looking quite worn while the other one of the pair, which I photographed yesterday, as as smart as ever. Presumably this is the female of the pair, frayed by sitting in a nest.

The female Blackcap at the bridge was keeping in a tree ...

... but one of her fledglings came out into the light.

A small group of Starlings had a wash on the edge of the Serpentine. They're gregarious birds and naturally do things together, and this also helps to increase their safety when they're in a vulnerable state.

A Pied Wagtail hunted in the grass beside the Round Pond. There are usually some Pied Wagtails here, and I think they nest in Kensington Palace, where the old brickwork provides suitable holes. I've seen them flying in and out at roof level.

The four surviving Mandarin ducklings were running along the edge looking for small water creatures in the pools thrown up by the waves.

It was quite windy, and the six Mallard ducklings huddled in the lee of their mother. (The wind was also keeping the Little Owls in their hole, so I didn't see them.)

There's a new brood of six Egyptian goslings at the Triangle.

There were some Wool Carder Bees, Anthidium manicatum, in the Rose Garden. They are less common in the park that the ginger Common Carders, Bombus pascuorum. The name 'carder' comes from their habit of teasing out plant fibres for their nests.

An interesting short video shot in slow motion by Duncan Campbell: a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee peacefully browsing on a Lamb's Ears flower knocked off by a small but aggressively territorial Wool Carder. This was happening constantly, but fortunately there are only a few Wool Carders so mostly the Buff-Tails can get on with their business.

If it was a dull day for birds it was quite a good one for beetles. This is a Dark Soldier Beetle, Cantharis fusca, in the grass on the hill leading up to the Round Pond.

A Rain Beetle, Pterostichus melanarius, ran across the path at Mount Gate.

A Harlequin Ladybird, Harmonia axyridis, flipped out its wings from their cases before flying off a lavender flower in the Rose Garden.

The hind wings are considerably larger than the elytra, that is the wing cases, which are modified and hardened forewings. They have to fold up to fit inside. I wondered how this is done, and found a paper giving a very full description of the process.

In short, the wings fold into a Z shape. When the elytra are raised the wings spring out ready for flight in 0.1 seconds thanks to hydraulic pressure in the wing veins. But hauling them back in is a slower process taking 2 seconds, which you have probably seen happening. The ladybird does this by closing its elytra and jiggling its abdomen back and forth. Its back has patches of small slanted spines which work like ratchets to gradually draw the wings into cover.

Ravenous fledglings

Two large families of Great Tits were together by the Steiner bench, with the hungry young making a tremendous racket.

A parent looked desperate. I gave them lots of pine nuts, which lightened their load for a few minutes.

A Chiffchaff sang overhead in the top of a holly tree. This was tricky to film, as the twig was swaying in the wind.

The Coal Tits ...

... and the Robins at Mount Gate were also collecting pine nuts for their fledglings.

A Grey Wagtail hunted along the edge of the Serpentine, picking up insects for its two young ...

... which were waiting impatiently in the Dell.

A Pied Wagtail at the Round Pond trotted through the puddles on the edge thrown up by the waves, which are a favourite place for them and must contain small aquatic larvae stranded on the edge.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery looked down from the hornbeam tree.

The usual male Chaffinch kept interrupting my attempts to get a good picture of her.

A Rose-Ringed Parakeet looked nervous when a Wood Pigeon landed on the same twig.

A Moorhen was preening on the edge of the Serpentine.

The Black Swan on the Round Pond hasn't brought his girlfriend with him. He was following a young female Mute Swan around. She was not pleased by his attention and kept her distance.

The Mallard still has six ducklings ...

... and the Mandarin was holding on to her four.

The other female Mandarin here had gone down to the Long Water to join another, and they were trying to pick up some food from people feeding the swan family at the Vista. They couldn't get too close for far of being attacked.

A Common Blue Damselfly rested on an iris leaf in the Italian Garden.