Thursday 20 January 2022

A Dunnock in the red-stemmed dogwood bushes at the Lido found a small larva.


A Grey Wagtail ran along the edge of the lake.


A Wren fluffed itself up against the cold.


Long-Tailed Tits hunted in the top of a hawthorn tree.


A Green Woodpecker called on Buck Hill ...


... where there were three Jays flying down to snatch peanuts from my hand. Almost all the Jays in the park are doing this now.


As soon as the smallest green shoots appear, a Wood Pigeon will turn up to eat them.


At the Dell restaurant, throwing food in the air drew a screaming crowd of Black-Headed Gulls.


On the ground below the pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull was plotting his next move.


The three Grey Heron nests on the island are still steadily occupied. One bird has been seen sitting down, but probably it only wanted a rest.


One of the herons flew down for a drink.


Two of their mates, freed from nest duty, stood on the roof of one of the small boathouses.


A young Cormorant took a break from fishing on the little island in the Long Water.


Four kinds of duck, four ways of feeding: Shovellers revolve filtering tiny creatures from the water, Gadwalls browse on algae, Tufted Ducks dive, Mallards crop leaves from the planters in the Italian Garden.


The old half-blind rabbit browsed under the Henry Moore sculpture.

4 comments:

  1. Very instructive and thoughtful video about the different ways of feeding - great idea!

    I am surprised that the poor rabbit is still hanging on.

    Do gulls bite when in a feeding frenzy? I imagine they would. As expected of a corvid, Jays will pass feeding tips to one another, so I guess you are now a celebrity in the Jay grapevine.

    There is something so startingly, disquietingly intelligent in Pigeon Killer's eyes.

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    1. The old rabbit has been around for several years. It may be blind in one eye but it seems all right in other respects, and indeed its fur is now less tatty than it was last year, I suppose as the result of growing a winter coat.

      Black-Headed Gulls will take food from your hand if you let them -- I am not inclined to try. They are very accurate slow flyers and I don't think they'd bite you either accidentally or deliberately.

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  2. I love it how the herons swapped nest duty for guard duty to a few gulls. Jim

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    1. There is always a substantial gap between rival herons, easily filled by gulls which have a smaller personal space. I thought of that picture as a coded Morse message, THT.

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