It was probably an escape from another park, but there is now a small feral population of these Australian birds in Britain.
Beside the pond, a couple of crows were showing little respect for Queen Victoria.
This rather odd statue was made by Victoria's daughter Princess Louise, an amateur sculptor. The Queen is wearing what Daisy Ashford described as 'a small but costly crown'.
The older brood of three young Great Crested Grebes on the Long Water are now getting quite good at feeding themselves. This one caught three fish in five minutes.
The male Shovellers are now in full breeding plumage and looking very fine.
A Cormorant was getting on to a post near the Serpentine island. This is done by jumping out of the water on to the chain, balancing perilously while climbing up it, and a final leap on to the post, which sometimes misses and the bird crashes ignominiously into the lake.
It was quite difficult to identify the young Herring Gull's toy today. Eventually I realised that it was a Coca-Cola bottle sweet from a pick-'n'-mix assortment.
The gull didn't seem to think it was edible, and was probably right. After a while threw it into the lake and played with some leaves instead.
A Grey Wagtail was surprisingly well camouflaged against autumn leaves at the Lido.
Great Tits are so familiar that it's easy to forget how beautiful they are. This is a female; males have a broader black stripe down their front.
It was a chilly, windy day but the female Little Owl came out in this year's nest tree.
hi ralph
ReplyDeletea black swan! goodness me! wish i'd been there to see it. i concurr about the great tits. they are very beautiful. and really cheer up the sometimes rather grey english backdrop.
i've been seeing on london bird wiki very early reports of redwings. any sightings in the park as yet? dont they normally show up on the parade ground after 'winter wonderland' has gone? i wonder if this indicates a hard winter to come?
Mark W2
No Redwings yet, but I am keeping an eye out for them. Usually we don't see more than a very few until quite late in winter, when they congregate on the wreckage left by that wretched funfair.
DeleteAny idea what they were filming in the park yesterday Ralph? Whole trucks full of lighting gear.
ReplyDeleteNo, sorry. I saw them trundling stuff around but didn't find where they were filming.
DeleteThey seemed to be based at the Lido Cafe but maybe the crew were just following their stomachs. I didn't see anyone point a camera at anyone else in anger, just lots of standing around in evidence.
DeleteThe arrival of a single Bewick Swan is being heralded as a sign of a hard winter...not sure how valid that contention is!
ReplyDeleteBewick's swans come from Siberia, so it would seem reasonable that an early arrival means that it's getting cold there early.
DeleteMore properly these days, Bewick's Swans are Tundra Swans, being the subspecies whose bill has a large sulfur patch. ;-) Jim n.L.
DeleteWish people could stop renaming species.
DeleteNor defer to the Yanks again on chemical spelling or a billion, nay thousand million other things! Jim
DeleteI think the blackswans are from St James Park. There used to be four of them. By last early spring, a pair had some cygnets. But after that I have never seen them again.
ReplyDelete