Long-Tailed Tits nesting

Long-Tailed Tits are now building nests all over the park. This one carrying a bit of spider web is nesting deep in the brambles at the southwest corner of the bridge. The nest is quite invisible, and they only way you know it's there is by seeing where they fly into the brambles before going don to the nest.

Another on the east side of the Long Water picked something off a twig which may be a brown insect larva, though it's the same colour as the leaf buds and might be one.

Long-Tailed Tits eat seeds especially in winter when insects are in short supply: here's a video I made in the autumn of 2022.

A Coal Tit ...

... and a Robin at the southwest corner of the bridge are both turning up when I'm feeding Great Tits there and are clearly interested. I think they'll come to my hand in due course. The Robin nearly did today but panicked at the last moment.

Magpies bathe by going into the water and splashing briefly and then coming out and shaking themselves dry, which they repeat several times till they're satisfied with the result.

The remains of a Feral Pigeon at the Dell restaurant showed that Pigeon Eater has had his lunch. He was having a lie down after his heavy meal.

The two young Grey Herons on the island had climbed up to the nest above theirs and were shifting around restlessly in the wind. 

Their parents had moved some distance away into the tree on the left to avoid being pestered by them.

The heron in the nest at the east end of the island could just be seen sitting.

The one at the other end couldn't, because the nest is deeper and the bird disappears when it sits down.

The Moorhen at the top of the Dell is now regularly at the edge of the waterfall pool.

There was another Mandarin drake on the Long Water, here seen from the far side of the Vista.

The reason we have Mandarins at the moment is a sad one. Their usual territory is on the Regent's Canal, but some vile scumbag from a cheap restaurant has poured a drum of used cooking oil into the water. Some oiled birds have died, others have been rescued and are being cleaned, and the rest have left. Attempts are being made to clean up the spill, which has drifted as far as Paddington Basin, but there's only so much you can do and the rest will have to be left to degrade naturally. It will be a long time before wildlife on the canal returns to normal.

Jon Ferguson found this remarkable duck in Finsbury Park. It's a Mallard x Pochard hybrid, quite a rare cross.

The male Egyptian Goose in the Italian Garden is still waiting for his mate to emerge from her tree with goslings. I first saw him alone on 12 February, so it will be ten days or so before she comes out.

The pair at the Henry Moore sculpture whose nest failed were back in their usual place on the lawn. There's another pair living nearby on Buck Hill, shown here, with which they often have territorial disputes.

Early blue flowers of Two-Leaf Squills are coming out beside the Long Water.

These low mounds east of the Albert Memorial, now covered with crocuses and daffodils, are the remains of Charles Bridgeman's 18th century 'Prospect Mount', of which I published a drawing on Monday. It was quite a large artificial hill 70 ft high and 100 ft wide, so there was a lot of debris and the mounds stretch for 100 yards.