More Grey Heron chicks

The fourth Grey Heron nest on the Serpentine island has just produced three chicks. A parent fetched a twig to build up the nest.

A closer look shows all three chicks.

A heron flew up the Serpentine to fish on the edge of the Long Water.

The Great Crested Grebes' nest halfway along the island was empty, probably predated by a heron walking along the edge. The nest on the chain is still all right. The water here is too deep for herons, but the open site is exposed to the Herring Gulls. There are no safe places.

The Coots at the Dell restuarnt have brought their two chicks out on the water, but were sensibly staying under the balcony.

The Coots on the swan nesting raft looked at poor 4GIQ, who will be stuck on her infertile eggs for some time before she gives up. They weren't sympathetic, they wanted her and her violent mate to go away and leave them in peace so they could make a new nest.

The Black Swan was some distance away preening on the shore, but he had relieved her on the nest earlier.

The Egyptian Geese by the island were down to eight goslings, but this is still a fair number and they are only losing them slowly, so they have a chance of getting some through.

The Mandarin at the Vista was ashore with her two ducklings, which she guards ferociously.

The Gadwalls in the Huntress fountain were eating the thick growth of algae brought on by the hot weather.

The Song Thrush on the edge of the leaf yard, which has been silent during the hot days, was clearly pleased by the drop in temperature and sang cheerfully in an acacia.

The bushes are loud with hungry Great Tit fledglings. This one looked hopefully round a twig while I was providing its parents with pine nuts.

A Wren near the Buck Hill shelter was making a loud fuss. There are always Magpies to shout at.

The Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery looked down sleepily from his lime tree.

A female Black-Tailed Skimer dragonfly was living up to her name, skimming along the edge of the Serpentine and constantly dipping to deposit eggs in the shallow water.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee browsed on knapweed at the back of the Lido.

Tom was at Rainham Marshes, where he got a fine picture of a female Cuckoo, one of several there at the moment. They come in different shades of grey and brown and this morph is called 'hepatic', though it doesn't look liver-coloured to me.

More Mandarin ducklings

A Mandarin has brought out six ducklings on the Round Pond. It's a slightly less dangerous place than the main lake as there are fewer big gulls, and last year a Mandarin -- possibly the same one -- managed to raise three young.

But there are still gulls. Three Herring Gulls stood uncomfortably close to a Coot which had foolishly nested on the gravel strip.

I don't think the eggs that the Mute Swan 4GIQ is sitting on are going to hatch now. Jenna suggests that they got overheated. I think it also likely that genetic incompatibility was a reason -- we know that hybrids do hatch, but we don't know how often. I think that on the day when the swans were excited one egg did hatch and the cygnet died, and that the rest are infertile. But who knows? 

Again, a pair of Great Crested Grebes were eyeing the basket enviously, the female so intent that she forgot to snap up some Common Blue Damselflies hovering next to her. If 4GIQ gives up and abandons the nest, they would have a chance to build on a place where the wickerwork fence wrecked by the swans is trailing in the water -- but that's a big if. They can't go on to the Long Water as they are constantly threatened by grebes which have territory there, and in fact there had just been a dispute by the bridge.

A Carrion Crow ate half-melted ice cream at the Vista ...

... and a Jay more conventionally perched on the railings to demand a peanut.

The old male Chaffinch was also waiting in the bushes.

A Wren protested at a Magpie in the clump of alders near the Italian Garden.

Ahmet Amerikali found a Reed Warbler east of the Lido ...

... and also a Cetti's Warbler, not here but in Battersea Park. It's not surprising that these increasingly common birds are there too.

An Emperor dragonfly hunted midges in the shadows under the bridge ...

... and a pair of Black-Tailed Skimmers mated on the shore.

Red-Eyed Damselflies flew over the algae in the Italian Garden. 

I saw three Red-Veined Darters flying over the Long Water but didn't get a picture. So I went to the Round Pond where you usually find more, but didn't see any. However, there was a little Garden Grass Veneer Moth, Chrysoteuchia culmella, on a seed head.

A Painted Lady butterfly fed on the stachys in the Rose Garden ...

... and a Small Tortoiseshell, almost unrecognisable with its wings folded, perched on a pink rose.

A Wool Carder Bee stayed still for long enough to get a reasonable picture.

The tall purple spikes of Woodland Sage, Salvia nemorosa, were thronged with Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.

Red-Veined Darter dragonfly

Although the weather was cooler today the small birds were still saying in the bushes, but a family of Great Tits were clamouring at the southwest corner of the bridge and one of the young ones came out on a twig.

The Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery looked down from the lime tree.

Pigeon Eater flew past ...

... having again been chased away from the Coot nest under the Dell restaurant balcony, still with two chicks.

There is no progress with the Black Swan and his Mute mate 4GIQ. He was idly throwing sticks around ...

... and she was preening.

 

The Canada Geese and their three goslings found some tasty fresh grass and weeds on the pleasantly neglected edge of the Peter Pan waterfront.

A pair of Egyptians at the bridge have brought out fourteen goslings.

The Mandarin and her two ducklings were at the Vista ...

... when the Pochard, still with four out of her orginal eight, came past and there were a brief clash. The Pochard won on the strength of having twice as many ducklings.

What the day lacked in birds it made up for in insects. There was a male Red-Veined Darter dragonfly on the watefront at the Vista ...

... along with a male Black-Tailed Skimmer ...

... and a female Common Blue Damselfly.

A Painted Lady butterfly drank nectar from thrift flowers in the Flower Walk.

A Holly Blue was laying eggs in a clump of Caspian sage.

A Small White fed on catmint flowers.

Buff-Tailed Bumblebees browsed on the red pompom flowers of a bottlebrush plant in the Rose Garden.

They were being bullied by Wool Carders, which never paused in their persecution but I got a hasty shot of one in flight in a clump of stachys.

Tower Bridge to Albert Bridge

Today I had a break from routine. After a quick check on the Black Swan and his mate -- still nothing to see -- I took the Underground to Tower Hill, crossed the river at Tower Bridge, and walked up the south bank to Albert Bridge and home. 

At Tower Hill station part of the original Roman wall of Londinium can be seen, with courses of squared stone interspersed with thin Roman bricks. The upper part of the wall is medieval. The statue seems to be of the Emperor Augustus, who never set foot in Britain. His predecessor Julius paid a brief visit in 55BC, but it wasn't till AD43 that the country was colonised by Claudius.

There were no exotic birds, but plenty of Herring Gulls all along the way. One contemplated Tower Bridge.

Two bickered over food scraps from a riverside restaurant, and others mooched peacefully on the shore.

HMS Belfast, built in 1938 and preserved as a war memorial and visitor attraction, is moored near London Bridge. The new City skyline mixes incongruously with its superstructure. The large curvaceous building on the left, nicknamed the 'Walkie-Talkie', has its glass front covered with a louvred sunshield. This had to be added because the concave surface of glass focused the sun's rays on the street and burned parked cars.

The remains of the Great Hall of Winchester Palace in Southwark, built in the 12th century as a residence for the Bishop of Winchester. It was completely absorbed in later buildings and only exposed to view in the 19th century.

Greylag Geese swam briskly downstream against the incoming tide.

A pair of Mallards rested on riverside steps.

The south bank is lined with fine Victorian lamp posts wreathed in improbable dolphins.

You can get down to the shore in several places. A large chunk of driftwood made a foreground for a distant view of St Paul's Catherdral.

The memorial to the Special Operations Executive, topped with a bust of the heroic French agent Violette Szabo, who was captured in 1945. When tortured by the Gestapo she revealed nothing. Later she was executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp. In the background, part of Lambeth Palace, the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

 

A lion in the grass at the outflow of the Effra, one of the many hidden rivers of London.

The ubiquitous Egyptian Geese are quite at home on the river.

A curious sight: a small alder tree growing out of a rotten wooden post from a seed left by a bird. There are two trees here, both rooted in posts.

Tyburn House, a short way upsream from Vauxhall Bridge, is where the buried Tyburn river flows into the Thames. On its way from Hampstead it feeds the lakes in Regent's Park, the gardens of Buckingham Palace, and St James's Park.

Tideway Village at Nine Elms is a motley collection of houseboats of many origins now permanently moored.

Its ornaments include a fine bronze horse ...

... and a comic plastic macaw.

Seen from above at Chelsea Bridge, a Mallard drake resting on the shore.

The Westbourne river, whose valley was dammed to form the Serpentine, flows into the river upstream from Chelsea Bridge. It used to emerge through an arch, but the place is now an access point for the new giant sewer which runs along the river and its exit has been reduced to three little slots.

There is a large colony of Carrion Crows that divide their time between Battersea Park and the gardens of the Royal Hospital on the other bank of the Thames. They socialise on the edge of the river.

On a warm day one kept cool with a dip in the Thames.

A rugosa rose growing on the river wall at Battersea Park, also no doubt from a seed deposited by a bird.

Finally, home via Albert Bridge, pretty in ice cream colours but sadly weak. At the moment it's closed to motor traffic while it's strengthened for the umpteenth time. The notice 'All troops must break step when marching over this bridge' is famous, but whether the vibration would do much harm is questionable. Better, perhaps, to leave the matter in doubt.