Again, the wild area behind the Queen's Temple was the best place to find small birds, though it was hard to get reasonable pictures in the dense leaves. A female Blackcap was ticking loudly at an intruder.
The young Chiffchaff was visible again ...
... and so was one of the two young Blackbirds.
A Jackdaw was expecting a peanut.
At Mount Gate ...
... and in the Flower Walk Robins were waiting for pine nuts.
The Herring Gull pair at the Dell restaurant are definitely making a claim for Pigeon Eater's place on the roof. They fled when Mrs Pigeon Eater landed, pursued by the hungry young one which chased her all over the roof.
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When she lost patience and flew away they returned to the same spot.
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There's another pigeon killer, this time not in the park but nearby at the Albert Hall. The security guards saw it kill this feral Pigeon, and I arrived when it was feeding.
The three Great Crested Grebe nests were all in good order. The male was taking his turn on the nest under the willow by the bridge, and his mate visited him.
A Grey Heron fishing a few feet away was not a threat, as the nest is in a place it can't reach.
Jon sent a pleasing video of a Little Grebe at Clissold Park in Hackney with three chicks. Two of them were chasing a parent around.
I've only known Little Grebes to breed once in Kensington Gardens. The ravenous Herring Gulls took all the chicks in a couple of days. Little Grebes are only infrequent visitors to the park anyway, which is a pity.
The Egyptian Goose on the Serpentine with one remaining gosling had a fit of vagueness and went on to the grass without making sure it was following her. The gosling came up from the shore looking for her, and she suddenly realised what she'd done and came back.
This is the almost white Greylag Goose that is slightly over normal size and probably has a bit of domestic goose in its ancestry. Domestic geese are Greylags bred for size, so it's not actually a hybrid. There are also two normal sized off-white Greylags on the lake which are probably leucistic wild birds.
A pair of Common Darter dragonflies at Peter Pan were in tandem, flying around together while the female deposited eggs on the algae. This is normal behaviour for the species. The male keeps other males away, and at the same time four eyes are better than two at spotting predators.
A male Willow Emerald damselfly perched on the railings.
The busy patch of hemp agrimony in the Dell had an Ornate-Tailed Digger Wasp, Cerceris rybyensis ...
... and a Speckled Wood butterfly.
A Common Wasp was strangely busy on the railings. It looked as if it had thought the iron was wood and was trying to scrape some off to make papier mâché for its nest. But I really don't know what it was doing.
Who knows what goes inside those alien heads. Bird thought is difficult enough to make up, imagine a wasp's.
ReplyDeleteDelightful video of the little grebe chicks. They were adorably flustered and confused. They're so fast!
So we got a second Pigeon Eater in our hands. I suppose this one hunts the old fashioned way, as opposed to the sophisticated technique of the Pigeon Killer we know and love.
Tinúviel
Little Grebes have very large feet for their overall size, and amazing power as a result. There is somewhere on YouTube a video of one running up a waterfall, though I haven't been able to find it with a quick search.
DeleteI shall have to keep an eye on that Herring Gull and see how it operates. It's quite individual looking. I pass that side of the Albert Hall on most days.
Thank you for another interesting update on the lives of the birds. Just to let you know there is a second grebe nest at the island to the right of the first one, just in case you haven't seen it yet.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Excellent news. I hadn't seen it.
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