Friday 25 November 2016

We haven't seen the Little Owls near the leaf yard for some time, but today the male came out of his hole and perched in the almost leafless chestnut tree to make the most of the sunshine.


The female of the pair near the Albert Memorial had come out to the front of the hole.


It was a windy day, and the Grey Heron that perches in a tree near the bridge had hunched itself into a streamlined posture so as not to get blown about.


It was too windy for shovelling on the open Serpentine, and some Shovellers had come into the shelter of the reed rafts at the east end of the lake.


A Cormorant flew upwind.


There was a young Great-Black-Backed Gull, first on the Long Water at Peter Pan, and later on the posts on the other side of the bridge. It's in its second year. Big gulls take four years to get completely adult plumage.


This Herring Gull is the same age. It was on the shore of the Serpentine, waving a leaf and calling in the hope of finding a prospective mate to flirt with. It got no response and played with the leaf instead, until the wind blew the leaf away farther than the gull could be bothered to fly to retrieve it.


A Magpie was washing in the lake by the Dell restaurant terrace.


A Jackdaw dealt expertly with a peanut in a tree near the Italian Garden.


A Coal Tit appeared briefly in the Rose Garden, but the other small birds were skulking in the bushes, out of the way of the many visitors brought out by the sun.


There are still some berries left on the lower branches of one of the rowan trees on Buck Hill, visited by a Mistle Thrush ...


... a Blackbird ...


... and a Rose-Ringed Parakeet.


But the fruit is vanishing fast and the show will be over here in a couple of days.

2 comments:

  1. A couple of raptors were being employed at Kensington Palace around mid-day to control the pigeons. The keeper told me they were "Harris Harriers". What a stunning bird (as all raptors,I imagine.)

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    1. Someone told me about a Sparrowhawk seen there. Probably it was one of the Harris Hawks. They are good at this job because they are (by the standards of raptors) even-tempered, and in the wild they hunt in family packs.

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