Great Crested Grebe and 3 babies hiding under a willow tree

On Sunday afternoon I went for another walk round the lake in Hyde Park and saw lots of interesting water birds on the lake.  More of those later, when I have time to write about them.

One of the main reasons I went there was that I was quite keen to find the Great Crested Grebe and chicks that Ralph Hancock mentioned in his Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park Birds blog.  Thank you, Ralph.  I was not quite sure where they were located and knew that they were hidden by greenery and hard to spot. He was definitely correct about that.

After a few hours walking and taking photographs, I decided to cross the lake by the road bridge and came down the steps on the other side in order to walk along the lake and then out of the park to an underground station.  When I came down the steps, I saw a Great Crested Grebe swimming along in the water.  By the time I focused on it, it was speeding away and, as you can see, the light at that time was not that great.

I took a photo of it and then, on looking around further, realised that it had been visiting the family under the leaves of an over-hanging willow tree.  My vision was impaired by the flowers, leaves and shrubs on the bank - but my luck was in and I had found the family I had been looking for!  It is kind of hard to tell, but there is a little stripey head in the centre left in the photograph below and just to the right of the spiky pink flowers.

I stood there for ages, taking lots of photographs and knowing that my photographic skills are not that great.  I have not got round to having some much needed photography lessons, but will do so one day.  Anyway, the parent kept appearing and disappearing from sight.  In the photo below, one of the youngsters can just be seen in front of the parent.

In this photo, three fluffy babies with striped heads can be seen hiding under the shelter of the overhanging leaves.

The photograph below has been cropped quite a lot so that there is a clearer view of parent and a young Great Crested Grebe.

Sometimes the parent and youngsters swam out from under the tree, but the view of them is still not very clear.

I was very excited to have actually found them and that they were in a position that I could, at least, attempt some photographs of them.

This is a cropped photograph of a youngster that has floated out from under the branches.  I love the fluffy feathers and striped head.

In the below photograph, the parent Great Crested Grebe has swum out from under the willow and a baby is floating in the water just, annoyingly, behind the tall spiked flower on the bank.

After a while, they disappeared completely from sight but I was over-joyed to have found them and to have been able to take some photographs of them.

Grebelets riding piggy-back on Great Crested Grebe

Another day, another London park!  This time I went to Regents Park where there is a very large lake and there are always lots of waterbirds.

One of my aims is to get a good photograph of a Great Crested Grebe.  They seem to me to always be in the centre of the water and a great distance away.  I try photographing them anyway, regardless, in the hope that something might turn out to be OK - or, at least, interesting.  This time, for me, I got interesting!  Three little stripey Grebelets are riding on the back of an adult.

Coot following Great Crested Grebe with 3 chicks riding on it's back

There is also a Coot swimming behind the Great Crested Grebe, but I was not interested in it at all.  I was thrilled to see the babies when I downloaded my photos onto the computer.  At first, I thought there were 2 chicks having a piggy-back ride but, when I cropped the picture further, I realised that there were 3 little stripey heads.

Great Crested Grebe with 3 chicks having a piggy-back

To say I was thrilled is a bit of an understatement.  Next time though, I would like the Grebe to swim nearer to the shore.