Several Green Woodpeckers called around the Long Water. A young one with speckled juvenile plumage climbed a tree near the Serpentine Gallery.
At Mount Gate another fledgling followed its mother, begging for insects.
She fed it in a tree.
The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery appeared near the top of the chestnut tree where the pair nested.
The male Blackbird in the Rose Garden flower beds caught another moth. It's a Large Yellow Underwing, Noctua pronuba. Curiously, noctua is Latin for Little Owl, whose scientific name is Athene noctua as it is the goddess's sacred bird.
A Wren perched on a bag of green waste in the Dell. Since the leaf yard is being revamped, all the cut branches and dead leaves are having to be taken by lorry to Regent's Park.
The Great Tit pair in the Dell have returned to the corkscrew hazel bush.
One of this year's young Grey Herons was fishing in the stream ...
... and an adult commandeered a Coots' nest on the Long water, built on a remaining branch of the big horse chestnut that fell into the lake years ago and has now largely rotted away.
The Czech Black-Headed Gull is back, and was standing on the old water level at Fisherman's Keep, looking round at the territory it dominates. It was hatched on a lake at Hobšovice, a few miles northwest of Prague, in 2021, and was given the metal ring ET05.589. It migrated to Hyde Park in its first winter, presumably with some unringed gulls from the same place, and has been here every year since. In 2023 the park bird ringer Bill Haines caught it and put on a plastic ring, Orange 2V57.
A Starling on the Dell restaurant terrace had won a chip from an abandoned plate.
The Great Crested Grebe pair nesting under the restaurant balcony were constantly togther, fussing about. It looks as if their eggs are beginning to hatch.
The Mute Swan 4DVZ and her three cygnets rested on the nearby shore.
One of the Moorhen chicks at Peter Pan had got separated from its parents and swam around squeaking plaintively. It did find them eventually.
A Coot chick was also alone on the collapsed willow by the bridge.
The second generation of Speckled Wood butterflies has emerged in the Flower Walk, in the place on the north side where they breed every year. This one was already slightly tattered. They are very territorial and fight each other.
A Common Carder bee browsed on an agapanthus in the Rose Garden.
A gigantic hibiscus flower fully 6 inches across has come out in one of the rose beds.
Nice treat on the Green Woodpeckers. Let's hope the GCG chicks will be okay in that area, it is highly active with snatching Gulls.
ReplyDeleteSean
Regarding noctua, I'm reminded that sometimes late imperial Greek called moths "little birds". I wonder if that's the rationale here. Poor moth, though.
ReplyDeleteI never would have imagined Grebes to be so agile at jumping. They do everything gracefully,
Tinúviel
We are so used to scientific taxonomy that it seems incredible to us that for the ancients there were just 'flying things' -- birds, bats, moths -- and 'creeping things' -- frogs, snakes, beetles.
DeleteGrebes are quite good at jumping out of the water on to a nest, but if they have to walk -- for example, over ice -- it's a sad spectacle. They keep falling over.