A Song Thrush at Mount Gate is still raising nestlings. It appeared in a tree carrying a worm and an earwig-like insect.
The Robins here have finished. Both came out for pine nuts, looking worn. This one has lost most of its tail feathers ...
... but it's in a better state than this tattrered bird at the southeast corner of the bridge.
Anyway, they have done their duty. This is the more advanced of the two young Robins in the Flower Walk, lurking under a bush.
The huge old ash tree at the corner of the Dell is host to a wide variety of birds. Here a female Blackbird perches on it and a young Robin forages for insects underneath.
A Wren was making a fuss behind the Queen's Temple.
A flock of Blue Tits swept along the edge of the Long Water. Here is one of the young ones in a tree by the Steiner bench.
The dominant Black-Headed Gull is back on the landing stage at the Diana fountain, as fierce as ever.
There was another Lesser Black-Back with dark eyes at the island. This is the third big gull with dark eyes I've seen here this year.
A Grey Heron preened on the electric boat platform.
The three young ones were looning about in their nest.
Coots enjoyed a fight at the Vista.
We've seen the two almost white Greylag Geese among the summer visitors to the Serpentine. This one preening at Fisherman's Keep is the slighly darker colour known as 'isabel' or 'isabella'. The colour is unreliably said to be named after Queen Isabel I of Castile. The story is that when her husband King Ferdinand II of Aragon was besieging Granada in 1491 she vowed not to change her underclothes till he had succeeded. The siege lasted eight months, by which time the garments had got fairly dingy.
There was also a very pale Egyptian Goose, much lighter than the usual blond ones we see ...
... but it's not nearly as pale as this pure white Egyptian photographed by Virginia at the Round Pond in 2018.
%202018%202a.jpg)
The Mandarin duckling was with the Mallard family on the gravel strip.
A bee on a burdock flower at Peter Pan is a new one for me. Later: Conehead 54 thinks it's a Large-Headed Resin Bee, Heriades truncorum, but is not 100 per cent sure.
I think that the smaller creature below it is a Black-Striped Longhorn Beetle, Stenurella melanura.
At least this Marmalade Hoverfly on an agapanthus in the Dell can be identified with certainty.
The BHG stands tall and proud on his platform and even gives you the direct dominant, intimidating stare. The testosterone is strong with this one..
ReplyDeleteSean
Any other BHG within 75 yards gets bashed.
DeleteI always have a bit of trouble telling apart leucistic from merely pale individuals. I'd say that Virginia's bird is leucistic, but the one you photographed today is just paler?
ReplyDeleteI'd say it's been a good year for Robins. But poor things, they look so much the worse for wear. I hope their plumage is still good enough to conserve body heat.
Maybe all three large, dark-eyed gulls are related?
Tinúviel
Leucistic birds lack melanin in their plumage, both the black and the red kinds -- there are other colour variations in which one or the other form is reduced. The colours of their other parts usually remain normal -- but our leucistic Greylags have blue eyes, showing a lack of melanin here too. In any case this is different from albinism, where colour is lacking everywhere.
DeleteThe Robins are emerging from breeding seclusion. Pairs are beginning to break up, and I have heard a few singing already. All this makes them far more visible. I don't think overall numbers are up -- unlike, for example, Song Thrushes which really have had a good year.
One of the three dark-eyed gulls seen in the park is a Herring Gull. The other two are Lesser Black-Backs. I don't know whether the cause of this is really having had bird flu and recovered, but that fits the observations and the same thing has been seen in unrelated seabirds such as Gannets.
Ralph, not 100% sure but I think your bee is Heriades truncorum.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much. Never seen anything like it before. There is a pile of dead wood a few feet away which may have a cavity suitable for it.
DeleteNormally I see them on yellow Asteraceae (though thistles are in the same family). Have seen them on Common Fleabane at the London Wetland centre & earlier in the week on the same plant in a meadow at Petersham/Ham where one was joined on an adjacent flower by a female Pantaloon Bee- quite a stunning bee.
DeleteYes, the pale underside of the abdomen is stylish in a Fifies two-tone way. I'm building up quite a repertoire of flowers liked by the commoner bees,
Delete