A bit of sunshine for a change

A beautiful sunny day but very cold. Outside Queen's Gate there was a small flock of Goldfinches twittering in the top of a plane tree. For some reason you see far more Goldfinches in the street than you do in the park.

There is a pair of Dunnocks in the bushes by the Lido restaurant. When the terrace is deserted they often come out and look for insects attracted by spilt food under the tables and chairs.

Long-Tailed Tits were leaping around in the honeysuckle bush near the Hyde Park bandstand where I filmed the Wood Pigeons eating flowers yesterday. No doubt the flowers attract insects. One came out of the bush and posed prettily on a thorny plant.

There were still some Wood Pigeons here, but also a group flailing around in the ivy hedge at the back of the Lido to get at the berries.

A Feral Pigeon perched on the head of the Westbourne river god sculpted on the keystone of the central arch of the Italian Garden loggia. He is looking thoroughly depressed. His river was diverted by Prince Albert's hygienic waterworks in 1860 and now runs ignominiously around the north edge of the park in a pipe. The god's strange shell-like hat is a reference to the three stone arches through which the river used to flow into the Long Water. The arches are still there at the back of the loggia but nothing comes through them now.

A Great Spotted Woodpecker called from a Lombardy poplar near the Queen's Temple, and obligingly came out on a low branch to have its picture taken.

Theodore complained yesterday that he never sees any woodpeckers in the park. I hear them on most days, both Great Spotted and Green, and soon after taking this picture heard another Great Spotted calling near the Italian Garden.

Starlings foraged in the grass beside the Round Pond. They are not in the least frightened of people, secure in the knowledge that their rocketlike takeoff will get them out of harm's way. But this flock was routed by a loose dog running at it.

It was too cold for the Little Owl, but there were lots of Jackdaws. This one was asking for a peanut on a bit of rotten wood which had fallen off the owls' tree.

Another perched on a nearby branch ...

...and this one looked suspiciously at a Magpie on the railings around the Diana fountain.

There were three Jays in the trees by the Queen's Temple.

A young Grey Heron stood on the edge of the Serpentine.

The female Great Crested Grebe from the west end of the island was patrolling her territory.

Moorhens enjoy persecuting Black-Headed Gulls. This one followed the gull around till it lost its nerve and flew away.

The killer male Mute Swan had been inspecting the Long Water to make sure no other swans had dared to come in. Satisfied, it headed back to the Serpentine with wings still raised in threat.

The roof of Zaha Hadid's fungoid restaurant next to the Magazine is made of a glass fibre textile. It picks up dirt and has to be cleaned regularly. The Magazine itself, a handsome classical building of 1805 originally built as a gunpowder store, needs no cleaning and ages gracefully. It's the Serpentine North art gallery now and you can go in and admire its enormously thick brick vaults designed to resist an explosion. You might even want to glance at the so-called art in it.

This notice was outside the other Serpentine gallery. Who would disagree?