Peregrine takes off

The Peregrines were on the barracks tower. The male flew off.

The Little Owl at the Round Pond was enjoying the sunshine on a chilly morning.

The temperature didn't keep Sunday visitors away from the outside tables at the Lido restaurant, and a Starling shone in the sunlight as it waited for its chance.

A Magpie perched among holly berries.

A Wood Pigeon ate the unripe berries in the top of a California bay tree in the Flower Walk.

The Black-Headed Gull was guarding its territory on the landing stage. It can't have much of a social life.

The Grey Heron was still on the raft in the Long Water, accompanied by just one Cormorant. It doesn't seem to use it as a fishing platform, only for resting.

A Cormorant perched on a thin branch on their favourite tree at the end of the Serpentine island. I still haven't managed to see how these rather clumsy birds manage to land here -- after all they can't land on a much larger post. The branch must flex a lot under the impact so that they don't come to an abrupt halt, and then they would hang on grimly till it stopped swaying.

The Great Crested Grebe family with four young on the Long Water seem to have left. Probably they anticipated an early frost and have flown to the Thames, which never freezes. Grebes are found upstream from Chiswick.

The two young grebes from the island are still here. They examined a floating leaf and practised their greeting ritual.

Although they are now having to feed themselves, they still try to beg from their parents.

It will be some time before the single youngster can fly.

A young Moorhen in the Italian Garden amused itself by climbing on a clump of Great Willowherb.

The solitary Gadwall cruised by.

A Greylag Goose on the Serpentine chewed bark off a twig.

The foxes were out in the Dell.

The Chinese Water Fir at the top of the Dell has produced some small seeds on trailing green stems. It is, of course, not a kind of fir, which would do no such thing.