One of the three Great Crested Grebe chicks at the island ate a feather offered by its mother and climbed up to join the others under its father's wings. It was moving about more easily than yesterday, but still on all fours.
There was a pair at the other end of the island which may have been the ones that nested halfway along, but they had no chick with them. I'm not sure about their identity and it may be a different pair. There are now several on the Serpentine.
The single teenage grebe enjoyed a brisk wash and preen.
The nest under the willow at the bridge is going ahead but there's still no sign of hatching here ...
... or at the Dell restaurant.
A few hot days have brought back the toxic blue-green algae on the Serpentine, and the east end of the lake smells dreadful and must be putting off diners on the restaurant terrace.
The small waterfall in the Dell is thick with scum.
More water problems at the Vista, where there is now frequent flooding at the north end of the waterfront from a blocked drain. A Feral Pigeon was bathing on the path.
I met a park manager here, and he explained what was happening. The Round Pond is fed with water pumped up from the borehole by the Italian Garden. The overflow from the pond goes through three small drains on the east side into a pipe and flows down to the Long Water. These drains have ordinary metal gratings, which allow feathers shed by the birds on the Round Pond to go through and build up in the pipe, which is now blocked at its bottom end and overflowing. The water is also seriously fouled by the large number of birds on the shallow pond, and is contributing to the algal problem on the main lake. A temporary solution is to put fine mesh covers on the drain gratings and to reduce the amount of water pumped into the Round Pond, but this will make the pond fouler so it's by no means a solution.
The hot weather has also caused an outbreak of botulism on the canal at Little Venice. Waterfowl are resistant to small amounts of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, but above a certain level it poisons them and some birds have died. There were fears that this was another outbreak of bird flu, but they turned out to be unfounded.
The Mute Swan family were feeding on ordinary green algae under the small willow at the corner of the Triangle.
The Black Swan preened one of his peculiar white wings.
A female Tufted Duck rested on the edge near the Lido, where the bathing area is now closed again.
A Grey Heron fishing in a fountain in the Italian Garden caught a small fish in the water lilies and flew off to the next patch to find more.
The Robin in the Flower Walk which came to my hand for the first time yesterday has quickly become confident and collected several pine nuts.
The usual male Chaffinch found me at Mount Gate. He turns up all over Kensington Gardens.
A Magpie struck a pose in a pyracantha bush at the Triangle.
Grey Squirrels in the Dell wrestled and chased each other.
A female Common Darter dragonfly perched on a railing spike at the Vista.
A moth which I'd never seen before rested on an oak leaf at the back of the Queen's Temple. It turns out to be a Maiden's Blush, Cyclophora punctaria, and quite common.
Hello Ralph,
ReplyDeleteI would say the water is still pretty good quality on the Serpentine? Yes we do get algae but we also get much hotter and drier summers now. I think many people blame the birds for algae but surely the conditions must be favourable in other ways for it to happen? Like the heat etc. I hear too many complaining about the number of birds but I believe it's less than it used to be.
Jenna
Yes, on the whole the Long Water and Serpentine are fairly healthy, though there is a zone of very high miscellaneous pollution around the bridge caused by car traffic and rubbish.
DeleteThe idea that we are having hotter and drier summers is being pushed by the adherents of the global warming religion. We have had hotter summers and worse droughts in the first two decades of the 20th century.
Yes, the Round Pond is probably less populated than it was when the old killer swans on the main lake pushed all the others up to it. This is offset, however, by the fact that the total swan poulation of the park has been gradually rising over the last few decades. What is certain is that it's a shallow pond and even with a fairly light population of waterfowl the runoff is seriously polluted and doing a great deal to eutrophicate the lake.
I think that the park management are serious in their plans to greatly increase the area of reed beds on both lakes. This can do nothing but good, but whether it will make much difference to the growth of algae is another matter. The lake is too shallow to avoid warming in summer and algal blooms.
If it were only green algae it wouldn't matter much: ugly but harmless and they add oxygen to the water rather than taking it away. But blue-green algae are a threat to all wildlife.
The mother looks nervous. That sort of preening looks to me like self-soothing behaviour. But if the baby is better today than it was yesterday that's very good news.
ReplyDeleteTinúviel
She may have hjad a run-in with the grebes at the other end of the island. That stretch of water has an invisible frontier halfway along and disputes are frequent.
DeleteMaiden's Blush is an attractive moth. I've occasionally had them when we trap at Perivale Wood NR.
ReplyDeleteIt posed prettily too. A most obliging creature.
Delete