Monday 18 March 2024

An owl's life is a hard one

Seconds after I took this picture of the female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery she was attacked by a Magpie and fled to a distant tree ...


... but when I came back a couple of hours later she was back home, looking down suspiciously from the upper entrance of her nest hole. It's a hard life being an owl, all the other birds hate you.


Yes, you had a video of this Song Thrush at the Henry Moore sculpture only two days ago, but when a bird is singing as well as this you just have to film it again.


It was the turn of a Jay to pose in the forsythia blossom at Mount Gate ...


... while the Blue Tit had moved to the dogwood bush ...


... along with a Robin.


Both Coal Tits were at the top of a tree.


I thought this Wood Pigeon was eating the withered berries on a patch of ivy at Peter Pan, but a closer look shows it was eating the leaves which must be quite tough.


A Feral Pigeon on a post had sought a mate exactly the same colour as himself, which they tend to do.


There were no other Pied Wagtails in sight, but this male on a moored pedalo was constantly twittering. You couldn't really call it a song, as their usual flight call is much the same. The sound is quite far-carrying, so maybe he was trying to attract a mate. Or maybe he was just talking to himself.


One of the young Grey Herons was standing on a log on the island.


Pigeon Eater stood in a group of Egyptian Geese, of which there are a large number at the east end of the Serpentine.


With Egyptians it's the females that make the most noise, and these two were really yelling at each other. The mate of the lower one, farther down the tree, took no part in the altercation.


Another stood on top of a sawn-off horse chestnut tree, which was sprouting fresh leaves.


Horse chestnuts come into leaf early, which is good for the Little Owls at the Round Pond who are surrounded by these trees and will soon have some privacy when perching in the open. But the pair at the Serpentine Gallery will have to wait several weeks, as sweet chestnuts are slow to put out leaves.

The Black Swan and his girlfriend were back at the place east of the Lido where they might, just might, decide to nest.


Two Mandarin drakes and a female stood on the shore at the Lido restaurant terrace.


A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee rested on a birch log at Peter Pan.

Sunday 17 March 2024

Thrushes

A Blackbird was in full song in a treetop on Buck Hill.


A Mistle Thrush clattered in a tree on the other side of the path. They have been very scarce recently, and hardly any of the usual winter migrants have shown up.


But we have a surprising number of Song Thrushes. This is the one I filmed singing yesterday beside the Henry Moore sculpture.


Another was on the other side of the lake by the bridge, angrily scolding a Magpie that had come too near, probably a sign that it's nesting. It eventually stopped bouncing around and allowed its picture to be taken.


A male Greenfinch twittered and wheezed in a treetop at Mount Gate.


The usual crew were here waiting to be fed. As long as this Blue Tit keeps posing against pretty backgrounds, I'm going to go on photographing it. This is the forsythia bush ...


... and this is a pink-flowered currant bush next to it.


Even a Carrion Crow did its best to look sweet against a floral background.


The Robin took three pine nuts, flying in and out for each one. When they get really confident they just stand on your hand and take as many as they can carry.


The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery came out in the afternoon.


Both Peregrines were on the tower an unsocial distance apart.


What a hideous structure this is, no thanks to the oddly celebrated Sir Basil Spence. This is what the previous Household Cavalry barracks looked like, a stodgy but perfectly pleasant building of 1880.

The two young Grey Herons in the nest on the Serpentine island clattered their bills furiously at a parent to make it feed them. No wonder the parents tend to stay in other trees.


The nest at the west end of the island seems  well established.


Cormorants in breeding plumage get bristly white feathers on their head to varying degrees, but this one at Peter Pan has gone pure white.


The killer Mute Swan, who won the nesting island on the Long Water by murdering its original tenants, was beginning to make a nest there with his mate.


The Black Swan and huis girlfriend haven't settled down to nesting yet, if indeed they are going to, and are wandering around various possible sites. A Coot greatly resented them looking at its own nesting place.


The Pochard x Tufted Duck hybrid drake was with a group of Tufted drakes at the Lido, all vying for the attention of a single female.


Sunday is the day for the rollerskate dancers on the Serpentine Road by the Cavalry Memorial. The daffodils may be wilted but this one is still going strong.

Saturday 16 March 2024

Dunnocks' courtship display.

A Song Thrush sang in a bush beside the Henry Moore sculpture.


There was a pair of Dunnocks in the alders near the Italian Garden. They were displaying to each other by flapping their wings. Both were doing it, so it wasn't like the female's 'feed me' appeal to her mate that some birds perform during courtship.


A Coal Tit at Mount Gate doesn't need to make an appeal. It knows it will get a pine nut simply by coming into sight.


The Long-Tailed Tits weren't much in evidence on a busy Saturday, but Ahmet Amerikali got a good shot of one of them in the brambles by the bridge where there is a nest.


The Grey Wagtail, in its favourite hunting place behind the barrier at the Triangle, found a larva.


A Pied Wagtail hunted from a moored pedalo at the boat hire platform. The boats were quite busy, but they're used to that.


A Carrion Crow ate a fish it had found, dunking it in a puddle as crows do.


Another emerged dripping wet from washing in the lake.


Both the young Grey Herons were on the shore of the island.


They only came down from the nest four days ago yet already the fishing instinct is starting to kick in. It didn't catch anything, but it's still being fed by its parents for now.


Coots can't resist bullying Moorhens. The Moorhen escaped easily by running up the netting to the top of the fence, something that bigger and clumsier Coots can't do.


Another Coot got bullied in turn by an Egyptian Goose.


There was a good deal of Mute Swan aggression at the east end of the Serpentine. Probably the attacker here is 4FUK, the second male in the pecking order and boss of the Serpentine when the killer swan is away on the Long Water.


Another good picture from Ahmet: a swan splashes down and waterskis to a standstill.


The Black Swan was at the Lido with his girlfriend.


This very small fungus, barely larger than a fingernail, is on a felled tree trunk by the path along the bottom of Buck Hill. It's opposite another trunk covered with Turkey Tail fungus, but this is different and I can't identify it.

Friday 15 March 2024

A serious stare

A Long-Tailed Tit stared gravely from a twig by the bridge.


One of the local Coal Tit pair came out for pine nuts, which have to be put on the ground for it to pick up as it doesn't yet dare to come to my hand.


Nor do the ones in the Flower Walk. They will eventually.


A Wren hopped around among new leaves in the leaf yard.


A Magpie perched in the pink-flowered currant bush by the Vista.


A Pied Wagtail hunted midges around the moored pedalos at the boat hire platform.


The Grey Wagtail was in its favourite place in the fenced-off area at the Triangle.


A pair of Herring Gulls beside the Serpentine nattered mildly to each other and one started dancing to bring up worms for them.


Pigeon Eater is now spending a lot of time with his mate. I have no way of being sure that they nest on the roof of the Dell restaurant, but I strongly suspect they do. You'd need a drone to see the place.


One of the young Grey Herons was down from the nest again. The other flew down and vanished into the bushes.


Coots are nesting in the place they have used before, on the submerged wire baskets at the northeast corner of the bridge. This is where large blocks of masonry fell from the bridge when a car rammed into the parapet and the baskets must have been thoroughly smashed, but there seems to be enough left for the Coot to attach a nest.


A Moorhen peacefully climbing on dead irises in a planter in the Italian Garden ...


... was rudely chased off by a Coot arriving to gather more leaves for its nest.


It has brought so many leaves that the nest, originally at water level, is now a foot above it. Coots have ways of rolling the eggs up as the nest rises.


A mob of Egyptian Geese gathered around someone feeding them, and more came up from the edge of the lake. The more signs saying 'Don't feed the birds' are put up, the less notice people take of them.


There were twelve Gadwalls around the gravel strip in the Long Water. Here are three pairs.


A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee browsed on blackthorn blossom by the Henry Moore sculpture.


Every spring a little patch of primroses comes up by the bridge. They were planted here by a gardener decades ago, but are proper wild primroses and not the cultivated polyanthus kind.