On a hot afternoon a Magpie was panting in the grass on Buck Hill.
A Carrion Crow dug up caterpillars in the Italian Garden.
A Song Thrush was keeping cool in the shade of the bushes.
A Robin in the Flower Walk has lost its tail fathers and will have to wait till the beginning of autumn to grow some more. It seems to be able to fly well enough, and here has just made a perfect landing on the fence in the Flower Walk.
The young Great Tits are noticeably quieter and gradually becoming independent.
Ahmet Amerikali reports that the Goldcrests in the big yew on the edge of the Dell now have chicks, so for the parents there will be weeks of frantic activity. They can have as many as eighteen, and each one has to be fed at least every twenty minutes. There is a sort of convection in their cup-shaped nest as the hungriest chicks rise to the top.
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The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was dozing in the top of the chestnut tree and taking no notice of what was happening on the ground.
A Grey Wagtail hunted along the slimy shore of the southwest corner of the Serpentine.
A Lesser Black-Backed Gull had a wash and preen.
A Grey Heron was lying on the wire baskets around the island -- not typical behaviour by any means, but I've seen it doing this before and it seems healthy.
The Canada Geese that retuen to the park every June to moult include these two with speckled heads. They aren't hybrids: it's something seen among pure-bred birds but the tendency to speckles does often surface in the hybrids with Greylags.
There's another on the Round Pond.
The Mallard family were circling the pond at quite a speed ...
... but the Mandarins were resting on the kerb.
A Honeybee fed on a little white clover flower on the lawn.
Ahmet found a female Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonfly in the Rose Garden. They are hugely outmumbered by males, which can be seen every few yards along the edge of the Serpentine.
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Lastly, two fine pictures from Spain sent in by Emilio Pacios, who was visiting the National Park of Las Tablas de Daimiel, in the province of Ciudad Real, Castilla-La Mancha. There was a Black-Necked Grebe in full breeding plumage, with its startling red eyes ...
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... and two Ferruginous drakes, Aythya nyroca, a bird I've never seen.
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Gotta love a Black-Necked Grebe, too cool looking. I have never seen a Heron sitting down resting like that.
ReplyDeleteSean
It's been lying on that basket quite often. Always the same one in the same place, on the landward side of the island.
DeleteWhen my late lamented canary bird used to go through the very protracted period of moulting, the last feathers he lost were its tail feathers. It had trouble balancing on its perch, but I assume since the poor thing was born in a cage, that its balance and strength were inferior to those of a wild Robin. They had grown back within a week though. I suppose the Robin's tail feathers will take even less time.
ReplyDeleteTinúviel
The Robin isn't moulting, it has accidentally lost its tail feathers through nesting or fighting or escaping a predator. So it will have to wait till normal moulting time to get new ones.
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