Sunday 14 June 2015

The day after the young Goldcrests were photographed in their nest on 3 June, they disappeared. We didn't know whether they had simply left -- they were already climbing out -- or whether they had fallen victim to two hungry Magpies that had been hanging around in the top of the tree. However, one of them was seen yesterday chasing its parent through the same tree, so at least some have survived. This fine picture was taken by Ahmet Amerikali on the 3rd.


Another family of Goldcrests could be heard in a yew tree on the east side of the Long Water, near the Henry Moore sculpture.

This Robin on the west side of the lake ...


...was collecting insects for a hungry youngster calling impatiently from the next tree.


The female Chaffinch at the leaf yard was waiting for me to feed her, and was quite patient for the few seconds it took to get a picture of her.


The pair of Moorhens near the bridge have deserted their impossible nest on the post without any surviving young, but they are still in the area. Here one of them is displaying and squawking at the other in the water below. I don't know what it meant by this. Usually Moorhens flash the white patches on their behinds at predators, but it may also be part of a mating display.


At the Serpentine outflow, the nesting Coot was being harassed by a female Pochard, splashing and quacking around the nest. Again, I have no idea what she was making a fuss about.


Blondie the Egyptian Goose is moulting her wing feathers, and was in her usual place on the edge of the Serpentine looking rather dejected.


One of her broken and discarded feathers is at the top of this picture, with one from a normal coloured Egyptian below it.


A big yellow daisy in the wildflower patch behind the Lido had attracted a Greenbottle fly.

No comments:

Post a Comment