There has been a single Little Grebe on the Long Water for more than a week and I have heard it calling, but never managed to get a sight of it lurking under the bushes. Today there was a very distant view of it by a reed bed on the Long Water.
The posts where the ill-fated tern raft was moored are still sticking out of the water, and make a perch for Cormorants.
A lot of the Black-Headed Gulls on the Serpentine now have the dark heads of their breeding plumage and some have already left for their breeding grounds, which may be as far away as Finland or as local as Basildon though they never breed actually in the park. Their courtship rituals have intensified, and now the female is sitting down to indicate willingness to nest.
A pair of Gadwalls dabbled in dead leaves in the shallow water by the outflow, where you can look down on to them over the balustrade.
The single young Mute Swan hatched on the Serpentine last year was sitting alone on the nest site in the nearby reed bed where it first saw the light of day. But it still isn't associating with any of the other swans. Having been brought up by itself with very attentive parents, it's socially maladjusted.
The Egyptian family, still with six goslings, had moved up the shore to near the Lido.
Pigeon Eater was looking immaculate in the sunshine by the Dell restaurant, with his mate on the roof above him.
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The familiar female Pied Wagtail hunted along the edge. She caught some small and unidentifiable creature.
The Little Owl at the Ranger's Cottage came out on a branch but was hard to see through the twigs.
A Jay looked down from a branch near the Queen's Temple, the frontal view displaying its Groucho Marx moustache.
The Robin at the southwest corner of the bridge came out to collect pine nuts ...
... as did a Great Tit in a camellia bush in the Flower Walk ...
... and a Blue Tit in the Wedge-Leaf Wattle in the Rose Garden.
Chiffchaffs were singing but not coming close enough for a photograph. This one was taken by Ahmet Amerikali in the scrub behind the Queen's Temple.
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Starlings at the Lido restaurant were frustrated by an inverted plate when trying to take some leftover chips.
A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee worked over pussy willow catkins near the bridge.
Martenitsas are appearing in the trees. This is an Eastern European tradition, and most of them are put here by the Bulgarians who live around the embassy in Queen's Gate. The red and white yarn signifies a man and a woman, and on the first of March you give it usually to a girlfriend or boyfriend who must then hang it on the first blossoming tree as a symbol of fertility. Since spring has come very early this year, no one has had to wait long to hang up a martenitsa.
The lonely teen is almost fully white now. He's almost an adult. What are his prospects, in swan society? They don't strike me as the most social of birds. Provided he's developed an acceptable degree of brutality, he should be fine, right?
ReplyDeleteTinúviel
The single young swan will be abandoned by its parents any time now and it will have to mingle. It will start its way at the bottom of the ranking and have to fight its way up, not helped by the fact that it doesn't know about the Round Pond, refuge for low status swans, and no one is going to show it the way.
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