Cooler weather brought out Robins all over the park. Here are just three of them: the tatty one at Mount Gate collecting pine nuts from the path ...
... one in the corkscrew hazel in the Flower Walk, which perched on my hand and took three ...
... and another in the Flower Walk which had found a small seed, but didn't fancy it and dropped it.
A female Blackbird on the ground below, seeing the small birds being fed, got the idea and hopped out to take some sultanas from the ground.
The Reed Warblers are still in the reeds under the Italian Garden, and Ahmet Amerikali got a good picture of one of them.
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A Carrion Crow was enjoying a splashy bathe in the Serpentine.
The dominant Black-Headed Gull at the landing stage strolled complacently along the shore of his territory.
Pigeon Eater had chased off all the large gulls from his patch except for his mate, and was preening on the restaurant roof.
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A young Grey Heron in the Italian Garden took over a Coots' nest to use as a fishing platform. The Coots were furious but there was nothing they could do.
One of the latest brood on the Serpentine island was climbing in a patch opf purple loosestrife.
When it had finished and flown off, a young Moorhen did the same. Both these birds enjoy climbing for its own sake.
A Moorhen at the Vista fed a smaller chick.
The mother of the three Great Crested Grebe chicks brought them a fish, but it was too large for any of them to swallow so she ate it herself.
The grebes were constantly fussing about at the nest under the Dell restaurant balcony. This may be a sign that the eggs are about to hatch.
The teenager was resting on the Serpentine. I haven't seen it associating with any other grebes, but presumably at least one of its parents is here as it wouldn't have found its way to the park by itself.
The Mute Swan family were at the Vista eating some evil-looking algae. There is a bloom of toxic blue-green algae in both lakes and the Round Pond, but evidently they have some resistance to it.
A Batman Hoverfly climbed over the hemp agrimony in the Dell.
Jabir Belmehdi found a Hornets' nest in Regent's Park and sent a video. It would be a brave golfer who tried to retrieve his ball from here. I wonder what the rules of golf say about this unusual situation.
Woops. One of them is enough to put the fear of God into anyone. Imagine a coming face to face with a dozen.
ReplyDeleteIt's tragic that half a dozen Coots should not be able to pool their communal resources in order to mount a Magpie-tier communal aerial defence. Sad.
Poor baby Grebe, claws would come handy.
Tinúviel
Hornets are peaceful easygoing creatures until you do something to anger them. The secret of coexistence is not to do that.
DeleteI don't think Coots are good enough in the air to attack that way. A mass charge over the surfacve might get a result. But they are too aggressive towards each other to cooperate.
Little Grebes have a much better way of feeding their babies. If a fish is too large the parent waves it about violently until it breaks up. Great Crested Grebes could do that but they have never got the idea.