Three of the Little Owls could be seen at the Serpentine Gallery: the male in the plane tree ...
... the female on her favourite lime branch ...
... and the female owlet in the chestnut.
When I came back in the late afternoon she flew across to the plane tree to pester her father. She was getting hungry, but couldn't be fed till sunset when the people and dogs went away and her parents could hunt on the ground.
Over towards the Queen's Temple, a Carrion Crow on a stump spotted me and came charging over for a peanut ...
... but the rest of the family were busy on an ants' nest.
A family of Long-Tailed Tits in the Flower Walk were dividing their attention between their usual favourite of a hawthorn, which seems to attract a lot of insects ...
... and a horse chestnut full of Leaf Miner Moth caterpillars, as you can see from the damage to the leaves.
A Song Thrush searched for worms in the fallen leaves below.
A young Robin looked around inquisitively from a branch.
The male Robin at Mount Gate came out several times for pine nuts.
Behind it on the hypericum bush was a Comma butterfly. Even with its wings folded the complicated outline makes it look interesting. It is the only member of the aptly named Polygonia genus native to Britain.
The Grey Heron in the Italian Garden was almost out of its depth in a pool.
A Pied Wagtail hunted in the wind-blown debris on the edge of the lake by the Dell restaurant.
The Great Crested Grebe nesting under the balcony was inspected by one of the Mute cygnets, which kept to a repectful distance and had probably been attacked already for going too close.
The Coot nesting on the raft at the Triangle was turning the eggs.
The posts in the Long Water which held the ill-fated tern raft are now regularly occupied by Gadwalls.
A bindweed flower by the Italian Garden attracted a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee and four smaller insects, Later: See Jim's comment below.
I can see four smaller insects than the bee on the bindweed flower. The three largest are true bugs, Hemiptera, of which the one just above and probably that to the left of the bee are Common Flowerbugs, Anthocoris nemorum. This is one of a number of small predatory plant bugs which may adventitiously bite people, though they aren't well-adapted for it. I can't identify the tiny insect to the right of the bee, though I think I've seen them many times. Jim
ReplyDeleteThank you. I hadn't even realised that the tiny dot to the right of the bee was a fourth insect. In case you feel like looking more closely, I've put a picture of the detail here. The image is mangnified to double size, so it's no longer sharp, but I think doing this helps.
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