January chill

It was a cold day with a freezing wind, and not surprisingly the Little Owl was staying in her tree and couldn't be seen. There were plenty of Jackdaws on and around the tree. I've never seen one harassing an owl, though the other corvids go for them like fury.

A Carrion Crow splashed vigorously in the Serpentine. I don't think birds feel the cold as pain, though cold days make them noticeably hungrier to keep their fierce internal furnaces going.

The bold Robin by the Henry Moore sculpture is now confident enough to stand on my hand and take several pine nuts.

Another, just along the path, hasn't yet got the idea of being fed.

The one in the shrubbery in the Rose Garden was flitting around restlessly.

This is the female of the Chaffinch pair in the Flower Walk.

Feral Pigeons kept a safe distance from the notorious Lesser Black-Backed Gull at the Dell restaurant.

A young Herring Gull, just getting the first grey feathers on its back, had evicted the usual Black-Headed Gull EZ73323 from the sign at Fisherman's Keep.

There are six Grey Herons on the island now, but only two of them seem to be paired. Four had come down to get out of the wind ...

... and one was waiting near the nest to change places with the sitting bird, which was well down in the nest and invisible from the shore.

The male Great Crested Grebe from the east end of the island was having a rest ...

... and the male from the west end had gone on to the Long Water. He preened and had a flap.

It's surprising that they can fly with such small wings. They have a very high unstick speed which they achieve mostly by foot power in a 50 yard run. Once airborne they move their wings so rapidly that you can only see a blur. To come down they descend till their toes touch the water, then fold their wings and crash in amid a shower of spray.

Plane trees have tough waxy leaves. You wouldn't think Mute Swans would find them palatable, but these two young ones by the boathouse were chewing them up happily.

A flight of Canada Geese arrived on the Round Pond from the southwest, coming in from the river.

A pair of Egyptian Geese made a fuss on a sawn-off tree on the south bank of the Serpentine.

This picture is a failure. I was using the Landscape setting of my small camera, which takes pictures at four different focuses and blends them to give you a huge depth of field -- this worked very well with the picture of the four herons at the island above. But here it didn't realise that the barracks tower in the background was of interest and failed to focus on it. The female Peregrine was on the tower but all you can see of her is a faint beige smudge to the right of the head of the upper Egyptian. This camera feature is automatic and has a mind of its own, you can't control it.

A fine Shoveller drake came in close under the parapet of the Italian Garden.

A rose bush next to the Diana fountain managed to produce a couple of very creditable red roses.