Saturday 10 June 2017

The Mute Swan family on the Long Water cruised past the Great Crested Grebes' nest. You can just see a grebe chick on its parent's back gazing at the procession of huge creatures.


There are at least two chicks in the nest.


The lone grebe chick on the Serpentine was by itself out in the middle of the lake, busily diving and playing at fishing.


It won't catch anything yet. But it will be good if it can learn to fish early, because its parents will be occupied by their new chicks when they hatch in a couple of weeks, and won't be feeding it so often.

Four cygnets on the Serpentine near the bridge were eating algae.


An adult swan was hoping to be given more interesting food at the Lido restaurant.


The two families of Greylag Geese cruised briskly across the Serpentine when they saw someone feeding the geese.


It was a bit of a feeding frenzy.


A Grey Heron was squatting, in both senses, on a Coot's nest at Peter Pan. Herons often steal Coots' nests, which are strongly made and make ideal fishing platforms.


People have been saying to me that they don't see many Jays. That's because they don't feed them. This was one of three expecting peanuts at the leaf yard.


A few feet away the female Little Owl was looking vexed because a Magpie was flying around in her tree, taunting her.


There are now plenty of dragonflies. This is a male Red-Veined Darter. It's a pity that the gravelled tarmac around the Serpentine makes such a poor background.


A male Black-Tailed Skimmer landed next to it.


Later I found a female Black-Tailed Skimmer on the much more attractive background of a grass stem. This is a species where the females are much more beautiful than the males.

2 comments:

  1. The Little Owl looks very annoyed, poor thing. Rationally speaking the Little Owl has reason enough to mistrust magpies (everyone has reason enough to mistrust magpies, come to think of it), but why would the magpies feel the need to harass the Little Owl? I wouldn't put doing it for the heck of it past them, though.

    That picture of the tiny Grebe looking at the passing dreadnoughts is lovely.

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    Replies
    1. Owls certainly have facial expressions, but it's too easy to anthropomorphise here. Anyway, that owl really was annoyed.

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