A Pied Wagtail sprinted across the bare earth on the Parade Ground.
There were also Redwings and Fieldfares, well camouflaged against the background and almost invisible until they moved.
A Carrion Crow perched in front of the waxing moon.
The Little Owl near the Henry Moore sculpture stood outside her hole, perversely not enjoying the sunshine.
One of the Peregrines was in the usual place on the barracks roof.
A Grey Heron preened in a tree near the Dell.
Another, on the roof of a boathouse, was disarranged by the breeze.
Someone had dumped some cooked carrots on the shore. A Black-Headed Gull tried one, didn't like it, and dropped it.
After yesterday's gulls from Poland and Denmark, two from the much less exciting Pitsea landfill site in Essex: 2BXS ...
... and 2PSN, which has been in the park every winter for years.
A Cormorant caught a fish in the old water filter under the marble fountain at the edge of the Italian Garden, and flipped it round in the air to swallow it head first.
The amount of fish that Cormorants haul out of this small space for months on end is astonishing.
Two Moorhens chased each other along the edge of a basket of water plants in the Italian Garden. It looks as if they are thinking of nesting.
As I feared, the Great Crested Grebes building a nest against the net surrounding the reed bed at the Diana fountian have not realised that if they went through the hole cut in the net, visible towards the end of this clip, the nest would be protected from gulls and passing boats. They are lovely birds but their nest building skills are very poor.
The nest at the island had fallen apart in the night, and the grebes were busy building it up again in their usual haphazard way.
Two of the Little Grebes were visible in different places on the far shore of the Long Water.
It took me a few seconds just to see the Fieldfare, and the Redwing had disappeared again the second time I looked at that picture.
ReplyDeleteThe moon is waxing, not waning. And presumably you meant the hole cut in the net. And as always, a pleasure to tune in.
Does it follow that those gulls nest or were raised at Pitsea, or could they be from further afield? Jim
Thanks for the corrections. I knew the moon is D-shaped when waxing, but somehow conventional poetic melancholy took over.
DeleteGood, as we are doing a late evening search for Tawny Owls on Wednesday and the moon will only be a day past full.
I think that gulls ringed at Pitsea in summer are almost always locally hatched. When you report the ring and see the record, many but not all of them have been ringed as juveniles. And I have not yet seen a record of a Pitsea-ringed gull that has gone far from London.
The Crow sitting under the moon looks like a Japanese painting. I bet there is even a haiku in it.
ReplyDeleteOdd that the gull should not find the sugary carrots palatable.
Winter fades. A crow
DeleteSeen against the waxing moon,
Harbinger of spring.
Ralph never disappoints!
Delete