Tuesday 16 September 2014

One of the Great Crested Grebe chicks, probably from the east end of the island, has become astonishingly tame. When it sees people it comes over and will even take food from them, a most un-grebelike thing to do. Here it is catching a crumb of bread that a boy threw to it. Possibly it thinks that this is a kind of feather, a normal part of its diet.


I don't think an occasional bit of bread will hurt it, as long as its parents keep bringing it plenty of fish. Geese and ducks are harmed by bread because it contains too much protein, but there could be nothing higher in protein than a grebe's usual diet.

A Sparrowhawk was circling over the Round Pond.


I am pretty sure that the Hobbies are off on their migration, probably by now flying through Spain on their way to the Gibraltar crossing.

There are now at least a dozen Cormorants on the lake. These three flying were flying over the Serpentine in the classic plaster duck formation. It would make a most unusual ornament for your living room wall.


Two of the seven young Mute Swans were flying up the far end of the lake.


One of these days I hope to get a better picture of them.

The three young Mallards from the Italian Garden pond turned up at Peter Pan. Their wings are not yet developed enough for flight, so their mother would have led them down past the marble fountain, where there are steps that a duck could easily jump down.


The gang of four Canada-Greylag hybrid geese are still together. They must be siblings. There is a fifth hybrid, with pink feet, which remains separate from them.


The Little Owl was in the chestnut tree next to his nest tree, but all I could capture was a one-eyed glance under a leaf.

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