The other kind of woodpecker

A frosty morning found a Magpie in a patch of frozen grass.

A Green Woodpecker is often heard laughing around the Cavalry Memorial at the south end of the Parade Ground, and I've never been able to get a picture of it. But while looking for the elusive bird I happened on a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers together on a plane tree.

The pair of Peregrines on the Knightsbridge Barracks were feeding separately, though the meal may have been a single pigeon ripped in half. Annoyingly, though, they go well behind the edge of the broad ledge so you can only see them from a hundred yards away. 

If you go closer all you can see is their tails bobbing up and down as they rip into their victim.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull had also struck, and a Carrion Crow was finishing off the remains.

With the gull, the Peregrines and the Sparrowhawk pair at work, at least 600 Feral Pigeons must get eaten every year in the park, but the population is instantly topped up from outside. The survivors don't let the massacre interfere with their love life. Again, a bronze male has chosen a female of his own colour.

Work on dismantling the remains of the Winter Wasteland is nearly complete and soon flocks of Redwings will be hopping around on the bare earth hauling up the worms which somehow survive being covered up for months. Meanwhile, there is a small advance party in Kensington Gardens and you can usually find one somewhere between the Round Pond and the leaf yard.

The female of the pair of Chaffinches in the Flower Walk has so far managed to avoid the virus that has badly affected her mate's feet.

A Blue Tit ...

... and a Coal Tit came out of the bushes on the path between Mount Gate and the Albert Memorial.

One of the few places in the park where you can often see Goldfinches is in the plane trees lining Rotten Row near the Rose Garden.

A Wren was foraging busily in a flower bed in the Rose Garden.

A Pied Wagtail at the Round Pond had found some tiny white creature. This photograph shows some white dots on the kerb in front of it which may be more of the same, but I still don't know what they are. I only noticed them after I had got home and looked at the picture on the computer.  I must try to find them again and take a closer look.

Freezing weather has brought more Gadwalls to the park, evidently escaping from a smaller lake that has frozen solid. Even when the Long Water is iced up there's always a clear patch of water by the reeds under the Italian Garden, where water flows into the lake from a borehole at a steady ground temperature of 10°C. A drake fed among the reed stems.

There were two more in one of the fountain pools.