Fearless Pied Wagtail

On a Sunday with reasonable weather the park was busy, but most of the regulars could be seen. They included the Robin at the southwest corner of the bridge, which is slowly getting more confident and came to my hand twice.

The Robin in the hawthorn in the Rose Garden is quite used to being fed and took six pine nuts.

The Coal Tit perched for an instant in the same tree while chasing me all round the garden ...

... and there were several Blue Tits.

The Chaffinch pair waited in a rose bush.

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits moved through the treetops on the south shore of the Serpentine.

A Pied Wagtail hunting on the edge came right up to my feet.

A pure white Feral Pigeon helped demolish a bowl of chips at the Lido restaurant.

A Magpie stared from a hawthorn beside the Long Water.

The two Common Gulls on the buoys at the Lido swimming area, which have been perching at opposite ends for several days, finally made friends with each other.

Pigeon Eater, in his favourite place on the Dell restaurant roof, was ruffled by the east wind.

A young Herring Gull played with a leaf.

Continuing the topic of the late arrival of gulls in cities, L. Fairfax pointed out a very interesting post on the Londonist blog.

The single Great Crested Grebe at the island rested under a bush.

The Coots' nest at the bridge was destroyed by the workmen putting up the pontoon, but the Coots are still obstinately staying on the spot. They're standing on a wire basket just below the surface and will have no difficulty in remaking the nest in spring. However, their efforts will be in vain as usual, for no nest in that exposed place has ever succeeeded.

A little girl at the Round Pond who had been to the ballet voiced her opinion of the Black Swan.

There were five Red-Crested Pochard drakes on the Long Water. Their comings and goings are irregular as they circulate around the central London parks.

The swamp cypress by the Italian Garden has turned a hectic ginger but has put out green catkins, which will gradually mature over the winter in the seasonal cycle of this odd deciduous conifer.

Robin versus worm

A Robin pulled an earthworm out of the ground, a big effort for such a small bird. Whenever it slackened its pull the worm started crawling back in. I filmed it for two minutes and it was still hauling, so I left it. I'm sure it managed in the end. The next stage, also a serious effort, is to peck the worm into bite-sized pieces. This is a meal that has to be really worked for.

The Robin at Mount Gate was glad to come out for a much easier snack of pine nuts.

A Blue Tit in the Rose Garden ate a pine nut that it took from my hand.

A Great Tit waited in the yellow leaves of a wild service tree.

This tree's scientific name, now Torminalis glaberrima, has recently been changed from Sorbus torminalis which put it in the same genus as the rowan S. aucuparia. Torminalis comes from the Latin tormina, colic, for which the astringent fruits were used as a remedy. 'Service' refers to its old use as a flavouring and preservative for beer in the days before hops were brought in -- compare the Spanish word for beer, cervesa.

The Chaffinch pair came out in a rose bush. This is the female.

There was just one Goldfinch in the top of a plane tree, a male alternately twittering and picking seeds out of the spherical fruits.

A black Feral Pigeon sat on the lawn.

The Coal Tit evaded the camera, but the one in the Dell is a bit easier and paused in the corkscrew hazel for long enough to get a picture.

The Jackdaw by the Speke obelisk had brought some of its friends along to ask for peanuts.

A Jay also turned up.

There are so many berries on the holly tree by the bridge that even a Wood Pigeon can't eat them all.

The two Common Gulls on the buoys at the Lido, which used to perch offishly at opposite ends ...

... were only twenty yards apart. Is this the start of a beautiful friendship?

A young Moorhen preened insouciantly right in front of Pigeon Eater. I thought he was going to lunge at it but he let it pass unmolested and flew off to find something else. Evidently he prefers the taste of Feral Pigeons.

A Black-Headed Gull preened in the reflection of autumn leaves in the Long Water.

Although most of the Cormorants have left there was still a little group on the fallen poplar at Peter Pan ...

... and Ahmet Amerikali got a remarkable picture of one just managing to swallow a pike, absolutely the biggest it could get down.

A beautyberry, Callicarpa bodinieri, has produced bright mauve berries in the Flower Walk.

The travels of gulls

A Robin singing by the leaf yard allowed an extreme close-up shot.

Another perched on the sagging stem of the Chilean rhubarb in the Dell. The plant never does well here, and its enormous leaves get shredded by larvae. The patch by the Italian Garden thrives and spreads, perhaps because it's in the open and gets more light.

A Robin sang from the clump of aucuba in the Flower Walk, whose dreary spotted leaves are seen in planters in a thousand housing estates, probably because it's unkillable.

The Coal Tits in the Rose Garden were making photography as difficult as possible, but I managed to get one in a rose bush ...

... and the other in the cedar just outside the western gate.

This perfectly shaped cedar looks exactly like the one on the Lebanese flag, and once a Lebanese tourist asked me to take a picture of him under it so that he could send it to his family at home.

There was a Pied Wagtail under the counter of the snack bar at the boat hire building. I hadn't seen one here before, but where food is sold crumbs are dropped, crumbs attract insects, and the wagtails go to hunt them.

A Jackdaw appeared at the Lido, asking politely for a peanut.

A Herring Gull had knocked the Common Gull off its favourite perch on the solar panel.

Pigeon Eater was pretending not to notice a Feral Pigeon as it came down to bathe. The pigeon was aware of the danger and kept its distance.

I've heard more about the cosmopolitan Black-Headed Gull mentioned on Wednesday. Originally ringed as an adult at Odense in Denmark, since then it has been seen at Huissen in the Netherlands, Eskön in Sweden, twice in Paris, and in London at the Brent and Wood Green reservoirs and in the park here on several occasions, the last of them on the Round Pond on 15 July this year.

I mentioned to Augustin Le Roux, who sent the Paris pictures, that there were no gulls at all in central London until they arrived about 1890. He told me that this was the case in inland cities throughout Europe, and quoted the Swiss ornithologist P. Géroudet (1958): 'This phenomenon began simultaneously in various parts of Europe during the last quarter of the 19th century, and then extended quickly to other cities, maybe because of laws protecting gulls.' The tendency of gulls to quickly copy successful behaviour, and the wide travels of some of them, must also have been an important factor.

Now that almost all the cormorants have gone, the Grey Herons are reclaiming the island. A young one stood on the Cormorants' favourite dead branch ...

... and adult fished from a wire basket ...

... and a pair were displaying in a nest.

The young Great Crested Grebe at the east end of the lake was fishing busily along the edge ...

... but always glad to see a parent approaching with a fish.

A Coot was eating ice cream from a dropped cone.

The young Egyptian Goose was returning with its parents from grazing on the lawn near the Triangle. It's hardly limping at all now.

A Common Pochard drake washed, preened and flapped at the Lido.

The two Red-Crested Pochard drakes here are remarkably idle and I've never managed to get a picture of either of them doing anything.

Long-Tailed Tits in the Rose Garden

Trees near the Speke obelisk put on a show of  autumn colours.

There were more Blue Tits in the Rose Garden than usual ...

... as they were flying with a flock of Long-Tailed Tits, one of which posed obligingly in the same small hawthorn.

A Coal Tit was here too, interested in taking pine nuts but hiding the moment I touched the camera. I finally got a fleeting shot in a rose bush.

 There were several Great Tits in the big yew in the Dell ...

... and once they start coming down the Coal Tits notice the movement and appear too, though again it's always a game of hide and seek.

Two Robins within earshot of each other in the Rose Garden sang in rivalry.

Another was watching a gardener digging in the scrubby patch east of the Lido, waiting for him to take a break so that it could fly in and look for turned-up worms.

The one at Mount Gate was already on the railings and didn't need to be called.

Two Starlings sang on a giant flower pot at the Lido restaurant while they waited to raid a table.

A Pied Wagtail ran around the upper balustrade of the Serpentine Gallery ...

... and a young Grey Wagtail used the ornamental stonework at the Saerpentine outflow as a hunting station.

This is the only young Grey Wagtail in the park, and it was hatched in a nest by the bridge. Adults fly in from time to time but there is no established population as there is with Pied Wagtails.

The dominant Black-Headed Gull preened on the landing stage before flying up on to the head of the Big Bird statue to survey his domain.

A Grey Heron returned to the nest at the west end of the island.

A Great Crested Grebe was fishing under the concrete beams supporting the small boathouse. They have more places to fish now that the Cormorants are leaving, but as usual the Cormorants have absolutely massacred the fish in the lake so they have to work quite hard to find anything.

A pair of Mallards rummaged for insects in fallen oak leaves by the leaf yard.