Saturday 4 December 2021

You usually see Black-Headed Gulls in a mob, and don't realise how many of them are actually couples staying together outside the breeding season. A pair beside the Serpentine called to each other, bowed, spread their wings slightly and walked around together.


The female of this pair in the Italian Garden is only a first-year bird, but the two seem to be an item.


A Wren perched on a bush in the Rose Garden ...


... and a Dunnock wandered around on the tarmac path, picking up grit.


The Coal Tit in the Flower Walk waited to be fed ...


... and so did a Jay lurking in the shadows under a tree.


A Carrion Crow drank from a shallow muddy puddle. They really do seem to like their drinking water muddy.


The Mistle Thrush was in its usual place in the rowan tree.


A Pied Wagtail hunted along the edge of the Serpentine ...


... and another worked over the roof of the Serpentine Gallery.


A Grey Heron landed on a nest on the island.


Blondie the Egyptian Goose has already had a mate and two broods, one of which was successful. But she lost her mate a few years ago and has had off-and-on relationships with other males since then. This is the latest one. She was on her home patch near the Dell restaurant, only 50 yards from where she was hatched in a ground nest in a patch of scrub.


Shovellers' feeding technique of extracting small creatures from the water by filtering them through the bristles in their bill is very labour-intensive, and they spend a lot of their time feeding.


More Gadwalls have appeared on the Long Water. Unlike Shovellers or Pochards, the ones in the park don't migrate. They seem to move around at random, and may appear or disappear at any time.


Two large pike were visible from the parapet of the Italian Garden. This is one of them, well over two feet long.


Another pleasing picture by Tom from Miller's Wood: a bronze tap provides a perch for a Blue Tit.

2 comments:

  1. I suspect muddled water may be a Crow's version of a flavoured drink. Who knows what they'd think of our human habit of drinking tonic!

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    1. Yes -- I was thinking in terms of tea or coffee, water adulterated with some kind of brown stuff.

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