Saturday 14 November 2020

It was a mild grey day, raining on and off. Two Cormorants, Black-Headed Gulls, a Moorhen and a Coot were at the boat platform in the drizzle.


A Moorhen thought it could knock a Black-Headed Gull off a post, as they usually can. But this gull refused to be shifted, and the Moorhen had to back down.


Another gull was getting the black head of its breeding plumage unseasonably early.


A Lesser Black-Backed Gull preened a wing.


A good picture from Ahmet Amerikali of a Cormorant taking a small fish below the Italian Garden.


Tinúviel asked me whether the young Mute Swans had grown to full size. Here are the two from the nest at the east end of the Lido. Both are bigger than their mother, and presumably male.


The male Peregrine was on the barracks tower during the morning. It had stopped raining for a while when I took this picture, so the bird had come out of the sad huddled position that he adopts in the wet, and was looking around.


A Magpie had a leisurely bath in the Diana fountain. Usually Magpies only splash for a few seconds before getting out and shaking themselves dry, but this one wanted to enjoy the flowing water.


Another Magpie picked a hole in the paintwork of the clock tower of the Lido restaurant. Maybe it hoped to find insects, or maybe it was an act of random destruction.


A Carrion Crow had won a bit of damp bread from someone feeding the swans.


A Great Tit perched among unseasonal blossom.


A few Long-Tailed Tits worked through the pyracantha bush behind the Lido.


A Robin looked out from a heap of branches beside the Long Water.


A big pink rose in the Rose Garden gave more bit of colour to the day ...


... and so did this brilliant orange fungus in the paving stones around the Hyde Park bandstand. I sent a picture of it to Mario, who has identified it as Orange Peel fungus (Aleuria aurantia).

4 comments:

  1. I visited the Round Pond and saw my first Common Gulls of the season. The Black Swan was chasing away lowly Mute Swans.
    I think I saw a Green Woodpecker flying between the trees in Kensington Gardens. It had a bounding flight

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    1. There's often a Green Woodpecker on Buck Hill at the Italian Garden end.

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  2. Gee, such strapping young ones! They are enormous.

    No doubt about it, that Magpie is enjoying every second of wanton destruction to the fullest.

    Must be the first time the Moorhen fails in its endeavour to knock a gull off its perch.

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    Replies
    1. It must have been a very senior gull in the local hierarchy. Their pecking order is visible in which gull can or cannot knock another gull off its perch.

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