Tuesday 8 September 2015

A family of Greenfinches flew into a tree near the Italian Garden. The young one in the middle had a winged seed in its beak.


The pair of Nuthatches at the southwest corner of the leaf yard came down to be fed.


There are two Nuthatch nests here, one in the old chestnut tree inside the railings and the other in a beech tree just across the path.

There were ten Magpies around the Henry Moore sculpture -- there must be several families in this band. One of them crept up on a rabbit, which was alarmed and hopped away.


At the island, a Cormorant jumped out of the water on to a chain.


After swinging perilously for a few seconds it was able to climb up the chain and hop on to the post.

For the Great Crested Grebe family nearby it was feeding time as usual.


The grebe family from the middle of the Long Water had come up to the willow tree near the Italian Garden, where their father was catching fish for them. One of them was diving with the adult, helping him to fish -- or playing at helping him, as children do. The other two were also diving together. Needless to say, only the adult caught anything. One of the young grebes stood up and flapped its wings, showing the flight feathers emerging, still partly in their wrappings.


The father from the nest near the bridge was also flapping his wings. He is moulting his flight feathers. Only a few of the old secondaries are still in place, and the new feathers are coming out.


Carrying chicks on their back ruins grebes' flight feathers, and they can't fly until they have grown a new set.

The fearless female Pied Wagtail on the south side of the Serpentine ran right up to our feet.


The male Little Owl was on his favourite branch in last year's nest tree.


No one has seen the owlets for a couple of weeks. They were pretty much grown up, and probably they have been thrown out to fend for themselves.

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