It has been hovering around anxiously for a fortnight, and yesterday made a brief touchdown but panicked and fled. After one visit today it became nervous again and I put food for it on the railings, which it collected alternately with a Nuthatch. But it has taken the plunge and will come again. In time, Coal Tits become so assured that they stroll around on your hand turning over the nuts until they find one that appeals to them.
The young Great Black-Backed Gull was back today, enjoying a pigeon at the Dell restaurant.
It was standing in exactly the same place that the pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backs use for their meals, but I think that it had caught the pigeon itself, since this is normal behaviour for Great Black-Backed Gulls and less usual for Lessers. There is, of course, a vast supply of Feral Pigeons at this end of the lake, and if all the big gulls took to eating them it would barely dent the population.
Both the Tawny Owls were in their current favourite place in the beech tree next to their nest tree, though they were not doing any favours to the photographer.
A beech tree is a good choice for an owl's day roost in winter, because it keeps a lot of its leaves when other deciduous trees go bare. At the moment you have to stand in exactly the right spot and look carefully to see the pair at all.
A Great Crested Grebe gives a fish to a youngster in the reed bed near the Italian Garden.
This is almost as productive a spot as the wire baskets beside the bridge, and the young grebes are also doing well here when they try fishing for themselves. Probably fish among reeds are easier to catch than when they are in open water.
There are still flowers with plenty of nectar for a wasp, and this one is dusted all over with pollen grains.
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