Large young Coots waiting to be fed

About a month ago, during one of my wildlife-spotting walks, I came across some large young Coots standing in the water near a boat house.

They were standing around, waiting for a parent or parents to come back and feed them.  In the below photograph, you can see one of them hopping around and showing off it's rather large foot.

I think that it is amazing how big their feet are but I suppose they have actually got rather large bodies.  This is not so noticeable when they are swimming around in the water.

While I was still watching them, the parents returned.  This chick has just received some food from mum or dad Coot.  It looks as though it is already nearly the same size as the adult.

Here, one of the young Coots is swimming around in the lake and looking quite fluffy and cute - for a change.  Unfortunately, young Coots are not the most attractive bird babies that I have come across.

In the following photograph the young Coot is being offered a morsel of food by a parent Coot and, again, it is looking quite endearing.

Unusual duck in the park

On Tuesday afternoon I went for a walk in St. James's Park.  I am very lucky because it is quite near to where I live, but I don't go there as often as I would like because there are lots of parks in London and I want to visit them all.  Also, there are plenty of other places with wildlife that are nearby, so sometimes it is very difficult to make a decision.

This time I did not have much time to spare, so the decision was made for me - the nearest one.  I walked round the lake and, in one of the area's where people feed bread and other unsuitable food to the ducks, swans and other waterbirds, I saw a duck that I did not recognise and had never seen before.  Several people near me were trying to work out what it was.  I took some photographs, even though the light was not great, and downloaded them onto the computer when I got home.

Then I spent ages leafing through a pile of bird books, trying to spot it in a photograph or drawing - to no avail.

After a while, I googled "duck with brown and white head" and the internet quickly came up with the answer.  It was a White-cheeked Pintail.  Of course, silly me, I should have known that!  It is normally found in the Caribbean, South America and the Galapagos Islands and occurs on waters with some salinity, such as brackish lakes, estuaries and mangrove swamps.  I am not surprised I had never seen one before.  What it was doing in a London park is beyond me and I guess it must have escaped some some wildfowl collection.

In the photograph below, it is standing at the edge of lake while having a drink.

In between drinking, it preened it's feathers.

I thought it was a very pretty-looking duck.

For anybody, like me, who has never seen a White-cheeked Pintail before, I got the following information about it from the internet:

"The White-cheeked Pintail (Anas bahamensis), also known as the Bahama Pintail or summer duck, is a species of dabbling duck.  It is a small, attractive duck with a pointed tail and is readily identified by the pure white cheeks for which it is named.  The white extends onto the throat and upper part of the neck, and contrasts with the mottled brown crown and the bright red base to the otherwise dark beak.  The rest of the body is a warm reddish-brown, spotted black, and is darker on the back, with reddish-buff edges to the feathers.  The tail is whitish or buff, and there is a bright green, iridescent patch (the "speculum"), bordered in cinnamon-buff, on the wing.

It is popular in wildfowl collections and escapees are frequently seen in semi-wild condition in Europe.

The White-cheeked Pintail forages by head-dipping, upending and diving in shallow water, feeding
on mainly plant material such as grasses and the seeds, buds, leaves and stems of aquatic plants, but also sometimes takes in animal matter such as aquatic invertebrates."

If it has escaped from a wildfowl collection, I certainly hope it manages to look after itself in the park or, if not, that is can be caught and returned to wherever it used to live.

Confusing Mandarin drakes in eclipse or are they juveniles?

During early June I went on one of my visits to Barnes Wetland Centre.  In the captive part of the Centre, I came across a confusing selection of fancy waterbirds, including several Mandarin ducks.  One is definitely a drake, as it still has it's distinctive rust-coloured mane and, in the photo below, appears to be quacking at the others who are sharing it's section of the pool.  The two at the top left and top right of the photo are, I believe, also Mandarin drakes in eclipse plumage - or are they juveniles or is the one on the left a female?

I think that the two birds with the green feathers on the back of their heads, and with their backs to me, are Wood ducks and that the one in the centre on the right could be a Baikal Teal.  Please feel free to let me know if you think that I am wrong.  The plainish brown duck in the centre could be almost anything, as far as I am concerned, as I find it very difficult to identify it from the angle it is standing.  I am fairly new to birding and am learning a lot from other people, the internet and a large collection of bird books that I seem to have bought over the last couple of years - some new bird guides, some for their great photographs or drawings and some interesting vintage ones.

Anyway, I do know that a Mandarin drake in breeding plumage looks very magnificent and impressive.  This one must just be starting to go into eclipse as it is looking a bit scruffy - which is not what Mandarins do!

Here, there is Mr Scruffy at the bottom and Mr Even-More-Scruffy at the top of the photograph.

This is a close-up of the very scruffy Mandarin drake - is it an adult in eclipse or a juvenile Mandarin?  I just don't know sufficient facts about them and I am trying to learn.

 Again there is a more-or-less still colourful Mandarin drake and he is with a duck that I assume was a female - or is it another drake in eclipse or, again, is it a juvenile?

This close-up view is, once more, a view of either a young Mandarin or a drake in eclipse - but which one?  I know they start to look more like females when they are in eclipse, but still have red beaks.  Could they be a family of Mandarins - male, female and juveniles?  I am confused!

The photograph below definitely shows a female Mandarin duck.  The photo was taken in May in Hyde Park and she was with her partner and youngster at the time.  This female as a dark beak, not red.

Gaggle of Greylag goslings on the lake

Towards the end of my walk around the lake in Hyde Park last Sunday, I was treated to the spectacle of a huge family group of Greylag Geese or, should I say, several families of Greylag Geese.  There were at least four parents and several baby-sitters, plus smallish goslings and a gang of almost grown-up goslings.

Here are some of them sailing along the Serpentine.  Apologies for the standard of the photo - the sun was shining, for a change, and the geese were not in the right location for a good shot.  I wish I could have asked them to pose in a better place!

When they had finished sailing around, they floated around in a mass of geese - I believe the group name is a gaggle of geese and they certainly formed a gaggle.

Below is, presumably, a parent with four of the smaller goslings.  They are all looking a bit haughty!

There were a number of adult Greylags in the gaggle and it was impossible to work out which ones were the actual parents of any of the goslings.

These are the larger goslings, now looking almost adult.

All the geese and goslings swam around on the lake for some time, then they all disappeared in a line into the shrubbery on the small island in the centre of the lake.

Great Crested Grebe on nest

On Sunday I went for a hot walk in Hyde Park.  As I was walking along near the Long Water, I thought I could see a Great Crested Grebe - one of my favourites - swimming in the distance (where Grebes always are!) in front of the reeds on the other side of the lake.

I must apologise for the quality of the following photographs as the action was all taking place much too far away to get any decent pictures, but I am putting them on this post anyway.

I took a photograph in the hope that something would show up in it.  It did, sort of!  There is a Great Crested Grebe swimming along towards the reed bed - presumably Mr. Grebe.

I walked on a bit further and, through a clear space in the tall plants and shrubs along the edge of the Long Water, I could see something more-or-less directly opposite me at the edge of the reeds.  When I downloaded the photographs onto the computer, it was easy to see the Coot swimming past and a little more difficult to see what was at the water's edge by the reed bed.  It was Mrs Grebe standing on a nest, with some white eggs showing just below her.  I think she is turned them around so that they are evenly warmed by her body when she is sitting on them.

The below photograph shows a little more clearly two eggs on the nest and Mrs. Grebe with a kinked neck.

She is also working on the nest material, probably packing it a little more tightly around herself and the eggs.

Below is a blurry photograph of Mrs. Grebe sitting back down on the nest and keeping the eggs warm.

This is the view of the reed bed taken from the end of the Italian Garden, where Mr. Grebe can once more be seen swimming around.  He has, I think, just passed Mrs. Grebe on the nest, which looks to be in the reeds at about the centre of the photograph.

I know that Great Crested Grebes are very sensible by nesting far away from human sight, but it is very annoying from my point of view as I would very much like to be able to take nice clear close-up photos of them.

Parakeets in the park

Whenever I visit Hyde Park, there are always people feeding the green Ringed-Neck Parakeets in a tree-covered area near the Long Water.  The Parakeets fly around in the branches, looking down on the silly people with seeds in their hands and hoping that the birds will fly down and take it from them.  What a surprise to hear lots of screeches - from the people, that is, not the birds - when they get pecked on the finger or hand!

Here, a Parakeet is standing on a branch and checking out the offerings on the ground.

I don't know if someone is giving or selling seed to the public, but I doubt that they are bringing it with them.  They usually carry unsuitable food for the wildlife, such as bread for the ducks and swans.  The Parakeet in the photo below has taken a huge piece of biscuit.  Unfortunately, I did not have the camera in Landscape mode, so the leaves are in focus and the bird is not, but it shows you how greedy they are.

This Parakeet is looking very majestic as it sits on the top of the branch surveying the mad scene below.

Three teenage Egyptian goslings, plus parent

It was sunny and hot on Sunday afternoon and I made a bit of a mistake by going for a walk in a large London park.  It was choc-a-bloc with people, of course, and quite unpleasant - but I was there and so made the best of it.

I was on the look-out for wildlife and enjoyed watching a parent Egyptian Goose with three young goslings.

One made itself look very pretty by floating into the centre of some greenery.  It actually attempted to eat this, but was very unsuccessful.

It's siblings were doing the sensible thing and were eating at the water's edge.  They paid no attention at all to the people on the bank who were watching them.

The swimming Egyptian gosling gave up and joined the rest of the family at the edge of the water.  I think it is shown in the photograph below, but can't be sure as all three of them look very similar.

Mum, or maybe it was dad, was with them and also enjoying food and drink at the water's edge cafe.

Below is a photograph of the three youngsters, two of them still eating, and the parent.  Not long after I took this photograph, the whole family swam off across the lake.

Wembley Arch seen from Kew Gardens Tree Walkway

A couple of weeks ago, I went with a friend to Kew Gardens.  I had not been there for a long time and so had not been on the Treetop Walkway.  I looked on the Kew Gardens site and found the following information about the Walkway:

"Opened on International Biodiversity Day, 2008, the Treetop Walkway stands in the Arboretum, between the Temperate House and the Lake.  It was designed by Marks Barfield Architects, who also designed the London Eye.  The 18-metre high, 200-metre walkway enables visitors to wlk around the crowns of lime, sweet chestnut and oak trees.  Supported by rusted steel columns that blend in with the natural environment, it provides opportunities for inspecting birds, insects, lichen and fungi at close quarters, as well as seeing blossom emerging and seed pods bursting open in Spring.  The walkway's structure is based on a Fibonacci numerical sequence, which is often present in nature's growth patterns."

We took the lift up to the top as neither of us could face climbing up the stairs.  From the top there was a great view of the treetops.

As well as seeing the tops of the trees, I realised that Wembley Arch could by seen between the high-rise buildings in the distance.

Below is a view through the trees of the opposite side of the walkway and the section holding the lift, with the stairs just behind it.

The photograph below shows the view over the side, looking down onto the ground below that can just be seen between the tree with cream flowers and the tree with darker leaves.

There are circular areas where the Walkway paths are joined together and, in some of these, the wire mesh floor is warped and uneven - which is very disconcerting when you are so far above the ground.  Even more disconcerting was approaching an area where a couple of children were jumping up-and-down on the uneven surface and making it even more scary!

We walked down the stairs and I took a few photographs on the way down.

8 Mallard ducklings having fun in the lake

After my unsuccessful attempt to visit the lake in Battersea Park recently when it was closed due to Formula E racing, a most unsuitable event to be held in a public park, I went there last Sunday afternoon.

I had a lazy start to the day so did not get to the park until after 16.30. The first wildlife I saw was a lovely Mallard family.

Mum is in typical duck pose here, with her head under water and her backside sticking up! One of the ducklings is copying her.

Mum is swimming around with her 8 cute ducklings. The water looks a very strange colour due to the reflection from all the trees around the lake, which have turned it even more green. It also is filled with green algae.

Below are 6 very cute ducklings and even more strange reflections of the trees.

One of the ducklings was making a very big splash!

Then another was diving around and having some fun.

Mum Mallard is looking very serene here, with a fluffed-up duckling following her.

Here there is a soggy cute-looking little ducking!

The ducklings are having a lovely bath and throwing water droplets all over the place.

What a cute Mallard family and what fun the ducklings seemed to be having.