The Serpentine was a noisy chaos with the first day of the public swimming event -- thank goodness it only lasts two days. Two Great Crested Grebe families, each with two chicks, were crowded uncomfortably closely into the chained-off enclosure by the Serpentine island. The scene cuts to the more distant family at 20 seconds, then pans back to the first family.
Four more grebes have just arrived on the lake, and must have been regretting their decision. But things would have calmed down in a couple of hours so they could catch some fish.
The lone Egyptian gosling was on the shore looking confused.
At least the Long Water was peaceful, and three Cormorants were fishing under the Italian Garden.
It was still quite warm, and a Cormorant reclining on a post at Peter Pan was panting and vibrating its throat to cool down.
A Wood Pigeon bathed in the small waterfall in the Dell ...
... and Ahmet Amerikali found a Goldcrest in the big yew tree.
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A Great Spotted Woodpecker perched on a treetop overlooking the Long Water ...
... and a Jackdaw kept a lookout from the top of the Henry Moore sculpture.
On the other side a hawthorn tree was busy with Greenfinches and Chiffchaffs. I got a picture of one ...
... and Ahmet got the other.
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This pair of Magpies is often seen in a variegated holly tree.
The young Robin at Peter Pan came down to pick up a pine nut on the ground. It's getting the right idea very early.
The Robin at Mount Gate was waiting as usual.
In the Rose Garden a Red Admiral butterfly worked its way over a stonecrop flower head, sticking its long proboscis into one floret after another.
Two frequent sights here: the long-flowering Verbena bonariensis and one of the tough Buff-Tailed Bumblebees that I have photographed here in every month of the year.
The park management have kept up the signs warning people to avoid contact with the water in spite of the swimming event. I suppose they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. A man carrying bundles that show he had been swimming was prudently photographing one of the signs.
Now that I see them so close together: I assume there is no danger of one family taking a chick not their own, as sometimes happens with geese and ducks?
ReplyDeleteI would give much for our Lord and Bully the Killing Swan to take a swim in the closed off area, even if it meant having to waddle his way there. We'd have an updated version of Jaws, only this time simply called: Swan.
Tinúviel
I've seen two grebe families mixed up before and the chicks, which were of different sizes, were clearly able to recognise their parents from 50 metres away. Probably it's mutual. Geese and ducks get confused partly because they have more young than they can count.
DeleteBefore the 2012 Olymics it was feared that the dominant swans -- the predecessors of this pair -- would attack the swimmers on the Serpentine, so they were kidnapped with their cygnets and taken up the Thames for duration. One of the cygnets died in exile but the rest were returned afterwards.
Seeing swimmers being attacked by Swans would be funny! Almost as funny as AI generated dancing cats on the internet, which is a trend thing at the moment! Oh what a time we live in.
ReplyDeleteNew Grebe news is great news.
Sean