Friday 1 February 2019

The promised snow turned out to be an anticlimax, and a steady drizzle was melting it, but there was just enough in a corner for a traditional picture. The Robin had probably found the larva on a bare patch of ground.


Two Moorhens went one way, one walking, one running, and a Carrion Crow walked the other way.


There were quite a lot of Redwings on the Parade Ground ...


... and two Mistle Thrushes, probably the resident pair from the Rose Garden.


A Blackbird hopped around on Buck Hill.


A Pied Wagtail found some small edible creature on the edge of the Serpentine.


There are more and more Jackdaws at the east end of Hyde Park as they expand their territory. This one was beside the stream in the Dell.


The lowest Grey Heron nest on the island is still active despite the snow, and in this very dull picture you can just see the top of the sitting bird.


A young heron scratched its chin on the dead willow tree near the Italian Garden.


Underneath it, there was one of the handful of remaining Shovellers. Most of them left when the lake first froze. Today most of the ice has gone.


The Red Crested Pochard and his Mallard mate were back on the Italian Garden pond. The Mallard drake is now always with them, but in a subordinate role and the other two ignore him.


A pair of Mute Swans on the Serpentine had their courting interrupted by a third, but shooed him away.


A pair of Great Crested Grebes on the Serpentine had remained in spite of the ice, and were displaying at the island.


Two Moorhens encountered each other, and a fight broke out at once. Presumably they are both males, but even so they are in an unusually aggressive mood.

2 comments:

  1. I LOVE that Robin picture and the picture of the footprints! (caps are entirely deserved for emphasis). I love seeing bird footprints (usually in the sand or the mud as I have seen snow maybe four times in my life); one of my main modes of entertainment in the beach involves looking for gull footprints in the sand while everybody else is working on their tan.

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    1. I can't get over my fascination with the huge feet of Moorhens, and the elegant way they deploy them. It's like running the 100 metres in clown shoes, under 10 seconds.

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