A Grey Heron was busily gathering twigs from a tree on the Serpentine island and bringing them back to its nest.

The tree looks quite springlike with its green leaf buds, and the heron is obviously in a vernal mood, but we still have another three weeks of February to serve.

There have been two Gadwall drakes on the lake for several days, and today they were joined by two females and another male. The female has very similar markings to a female Mallard, and if she keeps her wings neatly folded as here you can't see the small white 'speculum', a square patch of colour where the white tertial feathers show under the outer wing -- tertials are the flight feathers attached to the bird's humerus, the innermost wing bone. Mallard tertials are iridescent blue.

Gadwall and smaller and slimmer than Mallard, and they have yellow legs and feet while those of Mallards are orange, but the colour can be hard to distinguish under water.

The Bearded Tits were in the Diana reed bed as usual, though on this grey drizzly day they were not attracting much of an audience.

(Sorry, I put up yesterday's picture by mistake. This one is from today.)

A Goldcrest appeared briefly in a yew tree near the bridge before disappearing into the foliage. From this angle you can't see the gold stripe on the top of its head. The round black eye ring distinguishes it from the rarer Firecrest, which has a black line above its eye, and a brighter orange-red stripe on its head.

They like evergreen trees, which give these tiny birds (the smallest in Europe) cover and shelter in winter, and in this country yews are their absolute favourite. No doubt the shelter of the yew also attracts the insects they eat.