Tuesday 12 January 2021

A Robin beside the Long Water alternately sang a phrase and did a bit of preening.


There was a small flock of Goldfinches in the treetops above it ...


... and eight Magpies just along the path at the Henry Moore sculpture. There has been a family of Magpies here for several years and it's building up into a tribe.


With the general shortage of Blackbirds it was good to see a pair on the edge of the Rose Garden.



Usually when there are two Grey Herons building a nest one does the work and the other hangs about.


But in this nest they were both working.


One of the third pair was on the ground picking up a twig to bring to its nest.


A young Herring Gull doing the worm dance in the Diana fountain enclosure brought up one worm, but also seemed to be finding small things in the grass, maybe insects or larvae.


Another was interested in some cable ties. Anything like string or straps fascinates gulls.


A pair of Moorhens walked side by side on the boat platform.


A Great Crested Grebe passed a preening Cormorant.


The dominant Mute Swan on the Serpentine has harassing the others as usual.


A pair of Egyptians were having a bonding session in the middle of the Serpentine Road.


The fox opposite Peter Pan was curled up in the fallen tree trunk on a comfortable bed of rotten wood.


There are four fox families beside the Long Water. This is probably the earth of the one above, accidentally uncovered by the gardeners when they were clearing scrub. At the time the family had cubs, so they stopped work for a while.

4 comments:

  1. How I love today's Robin! Preen, sing, preen, sing, rinse, repeat. Life is simple and good.
    Great to see the two Blackbirds. It looks promising!

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    1. Mind you, Robins happily murder their neighbours. Sometimes life can be a bit too simple, perhaps.

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  2. Good to see you have some Blackbirds again. There are genuinely fewer around but does vary. I find "wilder" places having more. For instance on my Sunday local patch I had 16 between Ten Acre Wood area & Yeading Brook. At home we've had the odd bird & no more than 2 in the local park.

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    1. Worrying. One of our local Blackbirds a few months ago had what looked like the Chaffinch foot virus, which may or may not have something to do with it.

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