A Redwing perched in a tree on the Parade Ground ...
... while another pulled up a worm. There were at least ten here today, and also some in a treetop in Kensington Gardens.
On the barrier around the Wasteland site, a Robin looked down at its mate ...
... which was doing a display holding a feather, clearly an invitation to start nesting.
Everything seems to be happening early this year, though we still have February to get through. Crocuses are coming up beside the Long Water.
A Nuthatch appeared on a dead tree near the leaf yard, the first I've seen for a while. Perhaps my efforts to attract small birds back to this parakeet-devastated area by keeping a feeder filled are beginning to succeed. The feeder has certainly attracted a lot of tits and some Chaffinches.
A Great Tit ate some pine kernels that it took from my hand.
A Coal Tit perched among pink hazel catkins in the Flower Walk.
Long-Tailed Tits flew along the edge of the Long Water.
Starlings were having a mass bathing session in the Serpentine.
Five Jays near the Italian Garden came to take peanuts. Word is spreading.
An interestingly marked Feral Pigeon near the Triangle car park.
Oddly, this is the second young Herring Gull I've seen in two days playing with an AA battery. The first one was on the other side of the lake, so it's a different battery and probably a different gull. Young gulls love toys that roll.
Two adult Herring Gulls have got the pure white heads of their breeding plumage ...
... and the pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Back is almost there.
I saw a Yellow-Legged Gull halfway between Bluebird Boats and the Dell restaurant, but it flew away before I could raise the camera and I couldn't find it again. They are quite rare visitors to the park and I hadn't seen one for several years.
A male Great Crested Grebe was looking smart in his new breeding plumage.
A large Pike could be seen from the parapet of the Italian Garden. There are at least four big ones in the Long Water, as well as plenty of smaller ones which we have seen being caught by Cormorants.
Again, the loveliest pictures of the Redwings. They are looking particularly pretty this year!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the weirdest thing you have seen a gull playing with? A battery must be in the top three easily.
It was a matter of time information about tasty peanuts made it through the corvid grapevine.
I've seen gulls playing with just about anything they can findp, belts, combs, sponges ... but perhaps the oddest was one that picked up a tennis ball on a frosty day and repeatedly dropped it on the ice, grabbed it, and flew up to drop it again. Their obsession with ropes and cords is also fascinating.
DeleteYes great shots of the Redwings. When I made a second visit this week to Warren Farm yesterday small numbers of these & Fieldfares were sitting at the top of bushes by the horse field. Otherwise few around locally.
ReplyDeleteAn exquisite Feral Pigeon!
Haven't seen a Fieldfare here this winter. We never get many.
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