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.
%202024%201a.jpg)
Tom took this action shot of a Starling bathing in yesterday's sunshine.
%202024%201a.jpg)
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.
%20stare%20from%20roof%202024%203a.jpg)
¡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.
%202024%201a.jpg)
Glad to see she remembers she can fly, and very well too.
ReplyDeleteI am always amazed by how wagtails don't bat an eyelid even in the presence of strong winds that would make a large human hunch down.
Now I want to know the story with that swan. "You shall not pass!".
Tinúviel
Yes, it is remarkable how wagtails resist being blown away. Friction does reduce the force of the wind very close to ground level, but even so you can see their little feathers ruffle.
DeleteSwans do really enjoy blocking human paths and entrances, something that appeals to their surly nature. The lakeside path under the Triangle is quite narrow and sometimes they make it impossible to get along it.