Wednesday 12 February 2020

Things are back to normal after the storm, and the small birds are coming out of the bushes again, including all our old favourites. Near the bridge a Blue Tit ...


... and a Coal Tit came down to be fed ...


... and a Chaffinch perched on a twig, still not daring to join in.


In the leaf yard a Robin came down from the yew tree ...


... where a pair of Rose-Ringer Parakeets canoodled.


A Starling stared out boldly, waiting for a chance to grab some food. If you feed Starlings they will never let you alone, but they get quite enough from their surprise raids.


This Starling walks around under people's feet, confident of its ability to rocket off the ground. Starling song includes many imitations of other birds, sometimes exact and sometimes less so. I think there's the laugh of a Green Woodpecker at 25 seconds, and a sharp call of a Great Spotted Woodpecker at 56 seconds.


A Redwing on the Parade Ground found a worm and was about to eat it when it was attacked by a Starling. But the Redwing got away with the worm.


We didn't see a Mistle Thrush there today, but Rudraksha Chodankar got a fine picture of one earlier.


A Carrion Crow examined a large flower pot at the Lido restaurant.


The female Peregrine was back on the barracks tower for the first time since the storm.


The sitting Grey Heron in the nest on the south side of the island was a bit more visible today.


The heron at the Dell restaurant wandered around in a heap of dead leaves.


Joan Chatterley is still recording the progress of the young Black Swan in St James's Park. Her picture shows the black tips on its white flight feathers, characteristic of a young Black Swan's first set. The next set will be all white.

6 comments:

  1. I'm amazed by the length of that worm. It's almost as long as the Redwing!

    Meet Damar the chattering Starling: the stuff of nightmares:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KId25_Jf7Fc

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    1. Seriously alarming, though we know it's an innocent bird.

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  2. Hi Ralph,
    I'm new here. Could you please tell me where's the barracks tower? Many thanks.

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    Replies
    1. It's on the south side of Hyde Park, here:
      51.502209, -0.165355

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  3. Replies
    1. Hope you found it. There were two Peregrines here for a long time on Saturday in spite of the foul weather.

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