An uneventful day. A Robin sang on a tree in the Rose Garden, recorded in an interval between heavy lorries going past bringing things to the Winter Wasteland, which opens tomorrow.
Another posed on a dead stem in the Flower Walk ...
... and the familiar Coal Tit flitted about in the corkscrew hazel above.
The weather was still mild enough for people to sit outside at the Lido restaurant, and the usual Starlings were waiting for a chance to grab something.
The female Peregrine was on the barracks.
The Black-Headed Gull EZ73323 had been knocked off his favourite post by a Carrion Crow and was on the edge of the lake.
I haven't seen this gull, ES63954, before, or any gull with a ring from the British ES series. The number is quite old now, so the bird may have a bit of history. I've reported it and hope to have some information later.
Cormorants dried their wings and preened on the posts in front of the statue of Peter Pan.
One dived for a fish but came up with nothing but a beakful of leaves.
A Great Crested Grebe was fishing under the bridge.
A pair of Moorhens looked for edible things in drifted leaves at the edge of the Serpentine.
The marble fountain in the Italian Garden is working again.
Edward Jenner looked down on the resident Mute Swans and Egyptian Geese.
A Gadwall drake and a female Mallard stood on the kerb of a pool.
I didn't see any bees, but there were still plenty of Common Wasps on the fatsia near the bridge.
What a gorgeous picture. Edward Jenner looks like a sovereign attended by his Swan servants.
ReplyDeleteCondolences on yet another year of Winter Wasteland's nuisance. Poor Robins will need to scream their lungs out to be heard.
Tinúviel
I do like that Victorian habit of inscribing simple surnames in very large, deeply cut letters on indestructible granite so that they shall never be forgotten. Bazalgette the great civil engineer signed his works in this way.
DeleteAre the birds massing under Jenner trying to say they would like a jab against the avian 'flu? Jim
ReplyDeleteNo, because with the wisdom of birds they know it would be dangerous mRNA rubbish that would not work but would make them ill for the rest of their lives.
DeleteIsn't the avian 'flu vaccine, that is permitted for some zoos, similar in principle to that of human 'flu jabs going back decades? In any case I haven't seen anything authoritative to support your claims about mRNA technology. Jim
DeleteQuite likely. The new vaccines for ordinary human flu are going to be mRNA from now on, and a must to avoid.
DeleteBlack-headed Gull ES63954 was ringed at Hyde Park (presumably at the Serpentine) on 26th January 2005 by Roy Sanderson. I have four subsequent sightings all from the Serpentine between November 2018 and the most recent being Feb 2022 (excluding this one). There are actually 27 re-sightings, but I don't have access to all the data, but all are all between late October and mid-February and from nearly all intervening years since ringing. So a regular wintering bird.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much. One always hopes that ringed gulls will have been see in Tallinn or Tromsø, but most of them are homebodies.
DeleteWell, you did have a very wide-travelled Coot once. That counts for something!
DeleteTinúviel
We have had Russian and Finnish gulls too, and nearer countries such as Poland are routine. Plus, as you know, one that went the wrong way, migrating north from Spain.
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