Friday 3 July 2015

The Mute Swans nesting in the reed bed neat the Diana fountain have at least once cygnet. Virginia Grey managed to get a glimpse of it, though I didn't. It is hard to see anything of this nest, and getting harder every day as the reeds grow. It is in the larger of the two sections of reeds, but you have to look right along behind the smaller section to get even a faint and obscured view.


The Great Crested Grebes at the north end of the Long Water are continuing their on-off nesting attempts, and have now returned to the willow tree where they started, which can be seen from Peter Pan looking across the water.


Human watchers get frustrated by this process, but grebes will do things at their own deliberate pace.

The two young Egyptian Geese on the Long Water are still alive, and it is almost looking as if their feckless parents will raise a brood for the first time in ten years. The family were enjoying some duckweed near the Italian Garden.


There are now more than a dozen Black-Headed Gulls on the Serpentine and the lake is beginning to echo with their sardonic laughter.


A Hobby was visible in a plane tree. Kensington Gardens is alive with dragonflies, and the birds don't have to go far to catch one.


This beautiful female Black-Tailed Skimmer was just by the bottom of the Hobbies' tree, but had escaped their attention. In this species the females are showier than the dusty blue-grey males.


The Round Pond has a lot of algae on it, attracting clouds of insects. Both dragonflies and Pied Wagtails were dashing around hunting them.


It's noticeable that Pied Wagtails have very broad wings for their size, which helps them leap rapidly into the air.

The male Little Owl was sitting in deep shade in the chestnut which had been this year's nest tree.


The clover flowers in the grass near the Italian Garden were being visited by Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.


When I and my sister were children we used to pick out the little florets of the clover flowers and suck them, releasing a tiny taste of sweet nectar.

2 comments:

  1. If this particularly helpless pair of Egyptian geese manages to have a brood that reaches adulthood, there is certainly hope for everything!

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