Wednesday 15 July 2015

There are four Great Crested Grebe chicks at the Serpentine island. This was the first time I managed to see four little stripy heads sticking out from a parent's back.


 They are with their father. The mother was having better luck with fishing than before, and caught three little fish for the chicks in five minutes.

The parents of two young Pied Wagtails on the other side of the Serpentine were also working hard to collect insects for them.


A pair of Carrion Crows at the Round Pond were having an easier time finding food for their three young. They just chased me, demanding peanuts.


The Coots in the Italian Garden were feeding their five chicks, an even simpler task as you don't have to chase algae.


A young Herring Gull on the south side of the Serpentine had found a peach and was clearly enjoying it, since it ate it right down to the stone.


A Blackcap was singing in a copper beech next to the memorial urn to Queen Caroline at the east end of the Serpentine.


The lake was created between 1727 and 1731 to please her. Let's hope this huge undertaking had the desired effect.

This looks like an ordinary picture of one of the families of Canada Geese on the Long Water, standing on the paving slabs near the Italian Garden with their goslings. But if you look closer you will see that there are four goslings, and they only have three. They were looking after one of the two goslings from the other family.  The remaining gosling was with its parents, eating algae off the stonework under the marble fountain. Canadas often look after each other's young.


The male Little Owl was back in his nest tree. There was no sign of the owlets.


A Small White butterfly was drinking nectar from a corn marigold in the wildflower patch behind the Lido.

8 comments:

  1. Hi, I stumbled acrooss your blog whilst searching for an image of a blackbird pecking through moss. What fantastic pictures of the diversity of wild life to be found in the middle of a busty city. I'm interested in using the blackbird image (December 5th, 2014) for a project I'm working on. Could you let me know how I can contact you to explain further?
    Thanks, Jo

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    Replies
    1. Thanks. Please just take it – no copyright. Bring up the full size image and right-click on it, and you will be able to save it at 1000 x 750 pixels. If you need a larger size, please reply here.

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  2. What gorgeous little families! Lovely pictures, as always.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for your kind words. There are some wonderful sights here at the moment.

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  3. You mean Corn Marigold (Chrysanthemum segetum)
    Mario

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    Replies
    1. Thanks – text changed. As you know, I am deplorably ignorant about plants and fungi.

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  4. Hi,
    You kindly agreed that I could use your image of the blackbird pecking moss. Could you let me have a higher resolution copy? The copy I have appears a little pixilated when printed out?

    Thank you

    Jo

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    Replies
    1. I've looked at that picture. It's not top quality, as I was using my old camera, but the original, which is 4000 x 3000 pixels, has more detail and should be adequate. I think the brightness, contrast, and colour saturation and balance could be improved too, but will leave that to you. Please post your email address in the comments on the latest blog post -- not this old one, which I might miss -- and as soon as I find it I will send you the picture, and also delete your comment so that your email address is not exposed to web crawlers that might record it and send you spam.

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