A rose lover

A Wood Pigeon climbed through a multiflora rose bush to get at the fruit.

A fallen kerb block at the Peter Pan waterfront is a place for Feral Pigeons to bathe and socalise.

By the Dell restaurant one of their number had fallen to Pigeon Eater. Again he was finishing the last scraps, which he usually doesn't bother with. Evidently he had eaten a lot of it, abandoned it, and then felt hungry again and come back for a second helping.

His rival watched him from a safe distance of 25 feet.

A Common Gull on the Round Pond yawned.

The adult Grey Heron which is presumably a parent of the three latest young ones was preening in the nest.

Young herons of various generations are now scattered through the park and you can't tell them apart any more.

More Jays are appearing after their autumn session of burying acorns. This one was on a fallen trunk north of the Flower Walk.

It was a chilly misty morning and the Little Owl at the Round Pond was staying in her hole.

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits was busy in a dead hawthorn at the northwest corner of the bridge, a dark place where you can't get a good picture.

They were accompanied by a Wren. It's usual for other tits and warblers to follow the flock but I haven't seen a Wren do it before.

A teenage Great Crested Grebe on the Long Water was quietly fishing along with its father. They are growing up.

The various drakes are now all looking their best, from the gaudiness of a Shoveller ...

... and the slightly more restrained plumage of a Mallard ...

... through the cheerful colours of a Common Pochard ...

... and the jaunty black and white of a Tufted Duck ...

... to the tasteful restraint of a Gadwall.

We don't have any Mandarins or Red-Crested Pochards at the moment. They are irregular visitors.

The fox in the willow was settled down to sleep and you could only see the tips of its ears.

The benches along the edge of the Serpentine are in constant need of repair as the exercise maniacs use them as gym equipment.

A time to dance?

You don't expect Great Crested Grebes to dance in November. The western pair on the Serpentine were displaying, as they often do, but they seemed more enthusiastic than usual.

Then they both dived, so I started filming.

Cormorants on the posts at the Serpentine island gently agitated their wings to help them dry.

When a pair of Egyptian Geese encounters another, there's usually shouting. They are ridiculously territorial.

These were at the Huntress fountain in the Rose Garden. You'll notice that it's broken again. It has only worked for a few weeks since its expensive restoration last year. There are five sets of fountains with a water supply in the park, plus the waterfall in the Dell which is fed by an electric pump. Of these six only two are working, the Italian Garden fountains and the Diana fountain.

Pigeon Eater was on the water looking for his next victim, and his rival had taken the opportunity to steal his place on the Dell restaurant roof. I haven't seen these two in conflict yet, but it must occur.

This Black-Headed Gull was ringed by the North Thames Gull Group. Usually these gulls have a very unexciting history of flying between the Pitsea landfill site and the park, but this one has quite an early metal ring, EM38398, so it may have been somewhere more interesting. I've reported it to see if it has.

By the way, I still haven't heard from the ringer of the Danish gull I saw a few days ago. That's because the colour ring site cr-birding.org isn't working properly at the moment and won't accept full details, so I had to report it by the very slow Euring metal ring site app.bto.org/euring . The first of these allows you to contact the ringer directly and you usually get a reply within a day. The second doesn't, and your application grinds slowly through the clogged wheels of bureaucracy. However, I have now managed to make the colour ringing site work after a fashion by not giving full details and then looking at a list, so if I don't hear soon I'll write to the ringer myself.

The Little Owl at the Round Pond came out into her tree in spite of the dank and misty morning.

A female Pied Wagtail high-stepped through the wet grass below.

The female Chaffinch in the Rose Garden is getting bolder, and came out on to the path for several pine nuts.

The male Chaffinch who almost always finds me in Kensington Gardens was at Mount Gate, and came out for his daily treat.

He was accompanied by a Coal Tit, which came to my hand twice ...

... a Blue Tit, which also came down ...

... a Robin, one of a pair here ...

... and a Jay.

A Jackdaw waited on the railings of the Diana fountain.

Yesterday I said that there were no more bees on the Bog Sage by these railings. I was wrong: today there were two hardy Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.

There are still some other flowers for them just along the path behind the Big Bird statue.

But this place doesn't have year-round flowers like the Rose Garden, where I have photographed Buff-Tails in every month of the year.

Duncan Campbell found yet another kind of bracket fungus in the North Flower Walk. I'm pretty sure it's a Common Mazegill, Datronia mollis, a fungus which has a very varied appearance as it grows and ages.

November sunshine

The scarlet autumn leaves of the Japanese maple at the southeast corner of the bridge make a spectacular background, but there are seldom any birds in it. Today, however, it was visited by a flock of Long-Tailed Tits ...

... accompanied by the Great Tits of which there are always plenty at this end of the bridge.

Starlings looked for insects and worms in a weedy patch of lawn by the Diana fountain.

Another perched on the railings, looking into a clump of bog sage. Only a week ago this was full of insects, but numbers have fallen sharply as the cold weather sets in.

The Robin that lives in the yew hedge in the Flower Walk looked out of the leaves. It's the undisputed master of the hedge and seldom bothers to sing.

The Robin a short way up the path in the corkscrew hazel bush is also secure, and therefore fairly quiet.

This one on a stump near the Henry Moore sculpture has a much less clearly defined territory that it needs to defend actively, and sings loud and often.

Sunshine brought the Little Owl at the Round Pond out into the horse chestnut.

Feral Pigeons have an odd habit of sitting motionless in water for long periods. The greasy powder on their feathers leaves a trail on the surface.

Pigeon Eater was having a second helping of a victim that he had already mostly eaten. Two young Herring Gulls hung around waiting for a chance the grab a morsel.

The dominant Black-Headed Gull from the landing stage was looking out over his territory from the Big Bird statue.

The Grey Heron at the Lido restaurant had been along the terrace hoping someone would throw it a scrap. Disappointed, it went fishing by a reed bed. 

A Cormorant at Peter Pan shone in the sunlight as it dried its wings on a post.

Moored boats at the Serpentine island have been left to the numerous Cormorants, which are making an awful mess of them.

A teenage Great Crested Grebe chased its father up the Long Water.

A Moorhen enjoyed a piece of apple. All the birds that are not strictly carnivorous seem to like apples, a new taste since people started bringing them to feed the Rose-Ringed Parakeets.

The fox wasn't in its willow tree today, so here is a pleasing picture by Julia of one of them by the Dell stream.

Just an ordinary day

A cold dark Sunday didn't keep people out of the park, so there wasn't much to see. Apologies for rather a dull post.

There is a large group of Great Tits at the south end of the bridge, and they flock out to take pine nuts from my hand. Here are three pecking delicately at their treats.

Aside from the pair in the Rose Garden, there are two Robins that will take pine nuts from the ground ...

... and the familair pair of Chaffinches of which the male is getting very bold.

Seeing the feeding going on in a flower bed, a Blue Tit came over to see what it could get. They are much shyer than Great Tits and take some time watching the others before they gain confidence.

I only saw one Jay today, near the Queen's Temple. Autumn is a busy time for them, with acorns to collect and bury.

The Little Owl at the Round Pond was huddled well down in her hole.

A Grey Heron was fishing in the Dell stream.

A Lesser Black-Backed Gull and a Common Gull exchanged stares on the moored pedalos.

Of the two Lesser Black-Backs with pink legs we usually see the one with pale eyes which is Pigeon Eater's rival for the Dell restaurant territory. The other, with unusual dark eyes, was here today.

Pigeon Eater stared down disapprovingly from his place on the roof, but was too busy chasing off young Herring Gulls to deal with the intruder.

Cormorants have a habit of perching on thin branches that you think wouldn't be strong enough to support the weight of quite a heavy bird. So far I haven't been lucky enough to see one actually landing on a perch like this -- it must involve a lot of perilous sagging and swaying.

One of the young Great Crested Grebes on the Long Water was fishing by itself in the reed bed under the Italian Garden, though when it saw its dutiful father approaching it hurried out and started squeaking at him.

The two pairs on the Serpentine were resting quietly, ignoring the passing pedalos which they are absolutely used to.

There are very few Shovellers on the Serpentine, maybe only two drakes.

Most of them are on the Long Water, staying on the east side away from human disturbance. They like the shelter of the overhanging bushes along the edge.

The fox was on the willow again, but not in a place where you could get a clear view. It will be easier when the leaves fall.