The Little Owl pair at the Serpentine Gallery have produced at least one owlet. It looked down from a branch of the old chestnut tree.
Its father was on the other side of the tree.
A Song Thrush sang n a holly tree near Peter Pan.
Coots nesting in a fountain pool in the Italian Garden were taking care of their four chicks.
The Mute Swans with five cygnets came right up the Serpentine, passing within 50 feet of the Black Swan on the nesting raft, and I was worried that he was going to attack them.
But he stayed in place and they went under the bridge on to the Long Water.
Two hybrid geese, three quarters Bar-Headed and a quarter Greylag, fly in from St James's Park every year to moult their flight feathers. This one, which often spends quite a long time here, knows me and came over to collect some peanuts.
Seven Egyptian goslings huddled together for shelter from the gusty wind over the Serpentine.
An Egyptian with two grazed on the lawn east of the Lido.
The nest halfway along the island, which has been occupied by Great Crested Grebes and Coots, is now in the possession of a Tufted drake.
The single Pochard duckling, supervised by its mother, was diving busily at the outflow of a drain into the Long Water. This is a popular spot, evidently because the drain which comes from the Round Pond carries a lot of small edible creatures.
In the Rose Garden a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee climbed into a rugosa rose and spun around to get as much pollen as possible.
A Wool Carder Bee landed on a stachys leaf. They scrape the fluff off these leaves to line their nest, which is how they got their common name.
A Eurasian Drone Fly, Eristalis arbustorum, browsed on a Shasta daisy.
A Seven-Spot Ladybird crossed the path.
The Mount Etna Broom tree by the fountain is in spectacular yellow flower.
Two tiny Yellow Fieldcap mushrooms came up on the lawn between the Rose Garden and the Dell. They are very frail and last only for a day.
That broom tree is spectacular. We only get bushes, here, although they're endemic and may be found everywhere.
ReplyDeleteLook at the pretty fluffy owlet! Doesn't its father look rightly pleased and proud?
Wouldn't both Mute parents be more than enough to make the Black Swan back off?
Tinúviel
It may be that the two kinds of broom are the same, and the plant just happens to flourish in the English climate. This is the case with California bay, a scrubby little bush in California but a great big tree here.
DeleteI wonder if there's another owlet. They usually have two. Luckily they're quite vocal which makes them fairly easy to find.
The Mute Swan who was 4GIQ's mate has been routed again and again by the Black Swan, and 4GIQ herself has stood aside during these encounters. Most of the swans on the lake are afraid of the Black Swan, with reason as he's extremely aggressive,
Lovely shot of the Wool Carder Bee. I haven't seen one yet in my garden. They seem to be partial to nectaring on the Purple Toadflax.
ReplyDeleteThe hoverfly isn't E. tenax (presume that's the one you mean by Common Drone fly?) but a close relative, E. arbustorum.
Thanks for the correction on the hoverfly.
DeleteI'm surprised that you haven't had any Wool Carders. Perhaps they flourish in the Rose Garden because there's a lot of Stachys byzantina to provide fluff for their nests. There were a few last year and lots this year.