A Robin in the Rose Garden chittered irritably at a Magpie.
Another stared out from a variegated holly tree in the Flower Walk.
The tatty one at Mount Gate is growing new feathers, and looks better already.
The Coal Tit in the Dell was playing hide and seek in the big yew tree and I only got one fleeting shot ...
... but a Great Tit on the railings was keen to be noticed and fed.
A Starling finished a bowl of soup at the Lido restaurant.
A Black-Headed Gull had won a bit of batter from someone's fish and chips at the Dell restaurant.
Another look at the odd gull beside the Serpentine. I think it must be an undersized Lesser Black-Back, but its colouring is very unusual, especially the dark-barred bill and grey eyes.
There is a smelly mess of scum and algae at this end of the lake, but a young Grey Heron thought that there might be fish lurking under it.
A heron looked down from a treetop beside the Long Water.
More and more Cormorants are arriving. There were 16 on the fallen poplar at the Vista.
The two Great Crested Grebe chicks at the Serpentine island loudly pestered their father to go fishing for them.
The single chick on the other side of the lake was also making a racket.
The murderous male Mute Swan looked proudly at his teenagers by the Vista.
The single cygnet on the Serpentine was with its mother enjoying some oatmeal which someone had put down for them.
Four Shoveller drakes, not yet in their bright breeding plumage, have arrived on the Long Water. I saw two females a couple of days ago.
In spite of frequent showers there were Common Carder bees on the Michaelmas daisies in the Rose Garden.
The oddly Gull looks rather mean and ready for anything. It could well be a birthmark of some sort, which can happen in birds.
ReplyDeleteSean
See Jim's comments below.
DeleteI saw Jim's comment, Ralph, thank you
DeleteWow. He's really big. And very powerful-looking.
ReplyDeleteOnly devoted Grebe parents will have the patience to withstand the unceasing piteous begging!
Tinúviel
The grebe parents will have to put up with that racket for more than another month, and the young will still be dependent even when they've quietened down. It takes over three months to raise a chick.
DeleteThe gull is a bit smaller than a normal Lesser Black-Back but not outside that range.
I meant the murderous swan **insert shamed faced emoticon here**
DeleteIt could as you suggest be an LBB with a developmental abnormality. I dare say if your recent Herring - LBB couple bore offspring they would likely be something intermediate instead. I read that not only is Ring-billed Gull a fairly numerous vagrant in the UK, but supposed hybrids of that with both LBB and Common Gull, between which it is intermediate, have been identified in the UK and pictured (oh to be so skilled if they are correct), though none of these had the combination of bill ring and red spot to the outside of that as on this. Jim
ReplyDelete* Potentially two Herring - LBB pairs, I forgot. Jim
ReplyDeleteYes, I was wondering about a Ring-Billed Gull, though the bill isn't right and the colour of its back seems too dark. And also about a hybrid, in which case anything goes.
Delete