Sunday 5 December 2021

A horrible dark day of drizzle and rain with a chilly northwest wind. A Carrion Crow looked down on the deserted terrace of the Lido restaurant, where there were no scraps to snatch.

The wind caught a Moorhen facing the wrong way on the edge of the lake.

There were a lot of Pied Wagtails. Here is a male at the Lido ...

... and a distant view of one on the Dell restaurant roof ...

... and this female running around the stonework of the Italian Garden searching for larvae.

You wouldn't think they'd find much on a wet winter day. But their little eyes are sharp, and you only have to follow them for a couple of minutes to see that they are doing well.


A Robin in the Rose Garden added a much needed bit of colour.

Blackbirds are hard to film close up as they dart around at high speed.

The Mistle Thrush was in a maple at the top of Buck Hill, keeping an eye on its rowan tree in case some other bird dared to land in it.

Africa Gómez' always interesting Rattling Crow blog has a recent article about Mistle Thrushes defending trees.

A Black-Headed Gull kept diving at a surfacing bird. I thought this must be a Great Crested Grebe with a fish the gull was trying to grab, but it turned out to be a harmless Tufted Duck which was minding its own business. The gull was just feeling aggressive.

A Tufted drake showed up well in the shadow of the bridge ...

... but a grebe was hardly visible as it fished under the arches.

After the recent arrival of Gadwalls there was a little group in the Italian Garden fountains as well as some on both the Long Water and the Serpentine.

The loss of the very old Egyptian Geese from the Italian Garden has left a niche for a new pair -- just one pair as before. There's plenty of grass and water for more of them, but they are strongly territorial and this quite large space is only room for one pair.

It's the same at the Henry Moore sculpture, which the resident pair have all to themselves and make a loud fuss when another flies over.

4 comments:

  1. Most of the birds look miserable (I am shivering with cold in sympathy with all of you), but the Wagtails look perfectly content. It's as if nothing can touch them.

    Pound for pound a Blackbird's acceleration must be quite superior to that of a Porsche!

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    1. Birds are little furnaces. Put in enough fuel and they stay hot.

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    2. Ralph, you have regularly reported single mistle thrush Buck Hill recently, today (Monday 6 December) there were two chasing one another + a third, so the two may have been newcomers. Also in same trees at least two redwing, first of winter for me, I was very pleased!

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    3. Thanks for the information. What a relief, I thought they'd never show up. I did get a very brief glimpse of a Redwing today, but have still only seen the original resident Mistle Thrush.

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