Mid-June wildlife in St. James's Park, London

In the middle of June I went for another walk around the lake in London's St. James's park.  Firstly I headed off to the end of the lake that is nearest to Trafalgar Square to see the park's 3 Pelicans.  I had just missed their feeding time at 14.30, so they were in preening mode on their rock in the lake.

I came across a Heron and a young Herring gull standing on the wooden bridge at the back of the little gingerbread-style house near the lake.

Nearby, sitting on the ground, was a light-coloured leucistic Mallard duck and a Fulvous-whistling duck.

The leucistic Mallard stared inquisitively at me and my camera.

A black swan was sitting nearby.

 So was a male Hooded Merganser.

This is a view of the wild flowers growing on the bank of the lake at the back of the little gingerbread-style house.

Round the corner there were some light-coloured Hollyhocks.

A bee was collecting pollen from the inside of the Hollyhock flowers.

Further round the other side of the lake I came across a Red-crested Pochard who was going into eclipse.

The cygnets had grown rather a lot since I last saw them and were now rather large and looking more swan-like.

An adult Mute swan was keeping an eye on the family of four juvenile cygnets.

A Bahama Teal was standing on one leg at the side of the lake.

It tried to doze off, but was still keeping a beady eye on what I was up to with my camera.

A black swan stood up and stretched it's wings.

The Bahama Teal gave up trying to sleep and joined it's pal in the water.

There were a couple of Mallards nearby - now in eclipse plumage so that they look more like the females.

A Bahama Pintail had a chat with a Mallard.  All seemed to end amicably!

A white Snow goose was looking very attractive as it posed under a tree near the lake.

At the other end of the lake, on a grassy area, a young Greylag gosling had a rest between eating.

The adult Greylag geese were giving me strange looks as I took photographs of their five big goslings.

There were several Greylag goose families in the area.  This juvenile gosling belongs to an earlier brood and was much larger than the goslings in the other family.  I like it's fluffy Mohican head-dress!

The geese moved onto the grass on the other side of the path.  They were joined by a hybrid Greylag goose with his Bar-headed goose partner and their one large gosling.

The hybrid Greylag was staring at me and had a blade of grass sticking out from it's beak.

Dad, mum and juvenile gosling hardly stopped eating.

Back on the lake there was a large juvenile Egyptian goose swimming around and enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.

A Snow goose had also gone for a swim in the shade under the trees.

A family of Starlings flew out from the undergrowth and landed near me at the edge of the lake.  All, except this bold youngster, immediately flew back under cover when I moved.

It had a drink.

Then it had a bath before flying back into the bushes to join the rest of it's family.

A very pretty Ruddy Shelduck was nearby in the lake.

Part of the lake was covered in green algae and the Snow goose was making slow progress swimming through it and back to wherever it spends the nights.

George Clooney's villa on Lake Como

At the beginning of June I was staying with friends in a secluded mountainside villa hideaway above Bellagio on Lake Como.  Of course, no trip to the lake would be complete without a trip past Villa Oleandra, George Clooney's villa in Laglio, on the edge of Lake Como.

We took a ferry from Bellagio to Como.  I am an ignorant silver surfer and was completely unaware that we would be passing Villa Oleandra during our journey, but a young couple that were sitting behind us had an app on their phone that showed pictures of all the villas lining the lake that were owned by famous people.  They showed me a photo of George's villa on their phone and, when I looked up, we were actually approaching it in real life!

This photo with the villa in the distance is a little blurred - I was on a fast-moving ferry and had to take photographs through the window as the cabin was enclosed rather than open-air, as I had hoped.

There was no sign of anyone being at home.  Of course, the Clooney's were not there as they were in England at the time as Amal was due to give birth to their twins.

I was surprised that there were a lot of other villas near to and overlooking the Clooney's villa - I thought that it would be more secluded.

Lake Como wildlife - Bellagio, Lenno and Tremezzo

At the beginning of June I was lucky enough to spend a week with a group of friends at a villa in the mountains above Lake Como.  None of us were drivers or wanting to drive along the very twisting narrow roads up and down the mountain, so we had to rely on public transport.  This was not very frequent, to say the least, as the bus going down to Bellagio on the lake was at 10.00 a.m. and it returned to our mountain hideaway at 16.30 p.m. on every day except Sunday, when we had to travel in a taxi people carrier.  Nevertheless, we managed to find some great things to do during our allotted hours by the lake - especially taking several ferry trips across the lake to some of Como's amazing villas and gardens.

I was also looking for wildlife during my holiday and during the week tried, unsuccessfully, to take photographs of the many swallows that were always skimming the surface of the lake.  When I got back home and downloaded my photos onto the computer, I found that I had accidentally managed to get what I believe to be a swallow in this photograph that I took of the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio.

On the first day of our holiday we visited Villa Melzi in Bellagio, which is where I saw this blackbird with a beak full of worms - no doubt being collected in order to feed the family.

When I was sitting on a bench near the lake, this obliging sparrow posed for a short while on the top of the railings.

A dog lolloped down a set of steps that led into the lake.  A mallard was swimming nearby.

Fortunately, the dog was only interested in the stick that it's owner had thrown into the water and the mallard survived to tell the tale.

On another day we took the ferry across the lake to a little town called Lenno.  There I saw a waitress take some ice-cream cones (minus the ice-cream) down to a slip-way leading into the lake.  She crushed the cones and the bits were then set on by a gang of hungry male and female mallards.

This lone mallard had just arrived and was wondering what all the fuss was about!

While waiting for the ferry to take us back across the lake to Bellagio, I saw a female mallard with seven young ducklings swimming around amongst the boats that were moored along the edge of the harbour.

Later in the week we took another ferry ride across the lake in order to visit Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo.  There I saw this mallard couple.  They looked as though they were in a cage, but the netting was only round the sides and the couple flew out after we had walked away from them.

The drake was hoping we would feed him.

..... so was his mate. 

At Villa Carlotta there was a terrapin grotto.

The terrapins seemed to mostly like a crowd and seemed to be enjoying standing on one another.

No visit to the lake would be the same without seeing the obligatory gulls.  These two were standing on a post and watching the world go by.

Here there was also another female mallard with her brood of growing ducklings.

Towards the end of the week the weather got very hot.  Here two dogs are looking very comfortable, lazing around outside their front door, but seconds later they were up, running around and barking at some people that were walking along the road near their house.

Here a cat is having a lazy time under a flowering shrub.

 It looked very comfortable.

All week I had been trying to take photographs of the little lizards that were running around in the garden of our villa, but I never managed to focus on them before they disappeared into the foliage.  During our visit to one of the other villas, this obliging lizard posed on the path long enough for me to get a photograph of it.

And, as they say, you wait for a bus and then two come along together.  Blow me, when I got back to the villa in the mountains and looked out of my bedroom window, I saw another lizard resting on the window-sill of the room below.

This is another photograph of the same lizard using the zoom on my camera.

There was a small pond with the statue of a boy in the front garden of our mountain hideaway.  One morning I was having breakfast on the small balcony that overlooked the garden and I saw a black-and-white cat at the edge of the pond.  At first I thought it was after the small goldfish in the pond, but it only wanted a drink - lucky goldfish!

The cat noticed me on the balcony and stared at me for a little while.

Then it walked round the edge of the pond and sat with it's tail dangling in the water.

Then time for another sip!