Green Woodpeckers at the Round Pond

A Green Woodpecker, one of a pair, perched in a lime tree. This picture was taken at sunset and I am surprised I got it at all. The tree is one used in summer by the Little Owls at the Round Pond and they have often been photographed them in it.

The owl herself was in the horse chestnut on the east side of the nest tree. This picture was taken at midday, but she was still in the tree when I came back later.

The Wigeon was not far away, stepping out briskly to keep up with the wandering Egyptian Geese.

A Jackdaw trotted over the grass. There are a couple of dozen by the pond at the moment, all demanding peanuts.

A Jay was also applying at Mount Gate. I am getting through peanuts at a great rate and buying them in 25 lb sacks.

Several Great Tits at the bridge wanted their daily pine nuts, and this one erupted from a Burning Bush and whizzed past my ear to remind me it was there.

I was hanging around this place because the flies on the fatsia bush had been joined by a very late Honeybee which I was trying to photograph, which the constant interruptions from hungry birds made difficult.

The Robin at Peter Pan, poking about under a tree behind the railings, also expected service. The odd thing on the right side is an old bracket fungus, probably Ganoderma resinaceum.

A Blackbird dug in the fallen leaves under one of the old chestnut trees at the edge of the leaf yard.

The Grey Herons on the Serpentine island were definitely thinking of nesting again. This is a perfectly usual time for them to nest, and indeed all the herons in Battersea Park nest in December and hatch their chicks around the New Year. This is the top nest halfway along the shore side of the island.

The upper nest at the east end was also occupied, with the heron's mate on a branch above.

The lakeside is busy on a Saturday, and the bathing Starlings kept having to move along the edge.

Feral Pigeons were also bathing. You can see the trails in the water from the greasy powder on their feathers.

And so were a pair of Egyptian Geese.

An Egyptian drank from an urn in the Italian Garden. The urns, intended to have plants in them, have drain holes but these quickly get blocked and the urns fill with rainwater, which birds prefer to the water in the lake.

A young Great Crested Grebe was fishing under the parapet.

Its parents, relieved of three and a half months' constant feeding duty, could relax and were cruising up the Long Water together.

Cormorants perched on a fallen Lombardy poplar by Peter Pan.

Little Owls' effective camouflage

The Little Owl at the Round Pond was on the east horse chestnut again, and stayed there all day. This picture is from my second visit when she was looking particularly beautiful in the evening light.

She glared at a passing Magpie, which fortunately hadn't noticed her.

Neither had a Jay lower down the tree.

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits passed nearby.

You never know where the Kensington Gardens Chaffinch is going to turn up. Today he was at the southwest corner of the bridge, a favourite spot with small songbirds.

Ahmet Amerikali got a close-up shot of a Goldcrest in a tree near the Henry Moore sculpture.

The Robin at Peter Pan emerged from the bushes and called for service.

A Cormorant swayed unsteadily on a chain, but once it had got its balance it could hold on while preening and flapping.

Grey Herons are collecting in the nests on the island, and it looks as if there might be another breeding attempt soon. This is about the time of the first successful nest last winter, which was unusually early for the park -- but the herons in Battersea Park all nest at this time and produce their chicks around the New Year.

The Black-Headed Gull who owns the landing stage was patrolling the water around it. No other gull on the lake can match his early change into breeding plumage, which I think is caused by him being full of male hormones.

The number of Cormorants is now falling rapidly. There were only two among the Black-Headed Gulls on the fallen poplar at the Vista.

The Little Grebe passed by the gravel strip below.

There was an unusual blond Greylag Goose at the Round Pond.

The golden light just before sunset showed off the fine colours of a pair of Egyptian Geese.

The female Wigeon on the Round Pond doesn't associate with the other ducks. Instead, she likes to be surrounded by a protective flock of Egyptian Geese.

Ahmet got a dramatic picture of an Egyptian about to splash down in Southwark Park.

The lower trunk evergreen oak in the Rose Garden shrubbery was covered with flies feeding on the sweet sap oozing from its bark. This has been going on for some time, and in the summer I found three kinds of butterfly on the tree.

The condition is known as 'wetwood' or 'stem bleeding', and may be caused by bacteria or by a Phytophthora mould. Quoting a Forest Research page on the subject, 'In Britain, Phytophthora citricola, P. cinnamomi and P. cambivora attack various species of oak, mainly causing bleeding on the trunk up to 1 to 2 m above ground level.' The same page says that the bacteria sometimes responsible have not yet been properly identified.

Clumsy Wood Pigeon

A Wood Pigeon lurched around in the big Chinese privet tree at the bridge trying to reach the berries and, as usual, fell out.

A pair of Jays intercepted me on the way up the hill to the Round Pond ...

... where, despite the frosty temperature, the Little Owl was out enjoying the sunshine. She had chosen a different tree, the horse chestnut to the east of her nest tree.

A Jackdaw perched on the nest tree.

Ahmet Amerikali found a male Great Spotted Woodpecker in the woodland by the Henry Moore sculpture. We used to have a pair nesting here, but their tree collapsed and I don't know where they've settled.

The Robin beside the path came down for some pine nuts on the ground.

On the other side of the bridge two Robins were chasing each other through the trees in a territorial dispute.

A fine picture by Tom of a Long-Tailed Tit with a larva.

A Grey Heron stood imposingly on the roof of one of the small boathouses.

Pigeon Eater was doing the rounds chasing Herring Gulls off his patch ...

... but while he was away from his place on the Dell restaurant roof one of the rival Lesser Black-Backs, the one with dark eyes, had taken it and would have to be chased off too. The price of being Top Gull is constant vigilance.

Ahmet got another good picture of a Cormorant catching a perch under the Italian Garden. There are still fair-sized fish to be had but the stock is much depleted and the number of Cormorants on the lake is falling.

By the time I arrived it was flying away.

Two late-hatched young Moorhens, still in their drab teenage brown, were still hanging around with one of their parents. As usual with the secretive birds I never saw a nest or the young chicks.

The Wigeon was still at the Round Pond quietly grazing on the lawn. She stretched her wings.

The pair of Egyptian Geese that often stand on the Huntress fountain in the Rose Garden exchanged loud calls as they agreed to fly off.

Snowdrops have come out at the east end of the lake. However, I don't think they are the wild winter type Galanthus nivalis. They may be be the autumn-flowering species from the Mediterranean, G. reginae-olgae, named after Olga Constantinovna of Russia who was Queen of Greece in the late 19th century.

The gardeners call this scrubby patch the Caroline enclosure because there is a monument to Queen Caroline, wife of George II, for whom the Serpentine was created between 1727 and 1731. She too was an imported queen, from the royal house of Brandenburg-Ansbach. It was not an arranged marriage and George, who of course was German himself, was devoted to her. When she was on her deathbed in 1737 she entreated George to marry again. The heartbroken king cried, 'Non, non, j'aurai des maîtresses!' (He was the last English king unable to speak English, and French was the court language.)

Would-be woodpecker?

Wood Pigeons, perpetually hungry, will eat all kinds of things, but I've never before seen one pecking a piece of wood. It's clearly finding something to eat, maybe small insect larvae.

In the Rose Garden shrubbery a Dunnock ...

... and a female Blackbird were also looking for small creatures.

The ground under the ginkgo tree is littered with orange fruit, but the fruit-eating Blackbirds don't touch it. Clearly it smells as horrible to them as it does to us.

A Robin waited in a rose bush for me to throw some pine nuts on the ground.

It was a dull grey day and colder, and the Little Owl at the Round Pond wasn't budging from her hole.

But Ahmet Amerikali got a deceptively springlike picture of a Coal Tit in the Flower Walk perching in the blossom of a winter-flowering cherry.

Tom took this action shot of a Starling bathing in yesterday's sunshine.

The ribbed rubber matting provided for bathers on the jetty at the Lido is a little ecosytem. Egyptian Geese leave it covered with droppings which attract insects, and Pied and Grey Wagtails arrive to eat the insects.

The same wagtail caught a midge in fallen leaves on the edge of the lake.

A Cormorant on the boathouse roof was outraged when a Jackdaw landed next to it.

The young Grey Heron at the Vista always seems to fish at the same spot at the end of the gravel strip.

Pigeon Eater looked down haughtily from his place on the Dell restaurant roof.

¡No pasarán!

The tall Henry Moore sculpture on the lawn above provides a perch for territorial birds that like to keep a lookout for intruders. Both the local pair of Egyptians and the local Grey Heron use it, though not at the same time. I've never seen conflict, so evidently one won't land if the other is there.

There are a lot of Gadwalls on the lake and the Round Pond at the moment. A pair cropped algae on the edge of the Serpentine.

The female Wigeon at the Round Pond seems to live mostly on grass, like a goose but unlike the other ducks which mostly feed in the water.

She likes to have a guard of Egyptians that will warn her of the approach of an out-of-control dog.

But she is in no danger from those as she can take off vertically, as Tom's dramatic photograph taken yesterday shows.