A Great Crested Grebe was fishing under the parapet at the Serpentine outflow, and although the water was murky and the light dim you could see what it was doing.
It caught a perch ...
... surfaced ...
... and ate it. It has to be said that the fish looks most unhappy.
A young Herring Gull had somehome managed to tear up a plastic water bottle and was playing with a strip of it.
Pigeon Eater was refelected in the calm water.
%20with%20reflection%202025%203a.jpg)
A Carrion Crow bathed in the lake, climbed out, and shook itself dry.
A Grey Wagtail was hunting insects in the fallen leaves at the Lido.
It caught a midge.
A Blue Tit at Mount Gate neatly pecked bits out of a pine nut it took from my hand.
The usual Robin was there too, but for a change here is one on a bench in the Rose Garden ...
... where there was also a Great Tit in a clump of abelia ...
... and a Coal Tit in a rose bush. I hadn't seen this bird for several months, but it remembered me and came straight over to take a pine nut.
The Coal Tit in the Dell was lurking on a yew twig.
A Great Spotted Woodpecker was calling on the island, but it wouldn't come into sight. However, when I was photographing the tree it was on I saw this group of holes. I'm sure that at least some of them are too small for a Great Spotted. A Lesser Spotted has been occasionally seen in the park, beside the greenhouses and more recently at Mount Gate.
You never know where a Jackdaw is going to turn up, and this one was at the northwest corner of the bridge.
It was quite a chilly day, but the tough Buff-Tailed Bumblebees in the Rose Garden were still busy on the Shasta daisies.
The 1916 Dennis Model N fire engine belonging to the Royal College of Science Motor Club at Imperial College, nicknamed Jezebel, is still in fine working order except for a radiator leak and a tendency to eat big end bearings (which the undergraduates now cast themelves). It's often driven up to the Serpentine for a session with the pump.
Fish always act so dramatic when they get caught being eaten! The GCGs feet are interesting to say the least. They just look so flimsy with their skin flaps, like a floating leaf, and look like they would have no nerve sensation in them, from the lack of structure. But nonetheless, they perform accordingly underwater.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting an eerie still calmness feel of a sharks fine breaking the waters surface tension from Pigeon Eaters image. He poses the same fear.
Sean
Is it really from 1916? Amazing! Well done on the people maintaining such a wonder.
ReplyDeleteNo less wonderful than the pictures showing the Grebe swimming underwater, catching the perch and resurfacing. You can see every detail of the action with perfect clarity. Miraculous series of pictures.
Tinúviel
Yes, the fire engine really is from 1916. The Dennis Model N was the first vehicle with the basic capability of a modern fire engine, and its pump is powerful enough to drench a fair-sized house fire. It can be and is driven on public roads, and has been on the London to Brighton veteran car run several times, sometimes even getting there and back. There is also a 1902 James and Browne car, I think one of only two still extant, and a 1926 Morris open lorry with a wooden deck and sides.
DeleteI will be very pleased if you can spot a ‘Lesser Pecker’ - I believe that they used to nest in Greenwich Park.
ReplyDeleteTrevor Riddle
So would I. But they have been seen twice, and the tiny holes they leave are solid evidence that they were there.
Delete