A pair of Chaffinches appeared in the Dell. There are quite a lot of these in the park, but the only ones I see regularly are the pair in the Rose Garden shrubbery and the pair in the Flower Walk of which the male follows me demanding pine nuts.
There is also a pair seen occasionally at Mount Gate.
Ahmet Amerikali got a good picture of a female Greenfinch near the Henry Moore sculpture, one of a pair that are usually out of sight in the woodland.
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I saw a Wren in the same area, climbing down an oak trunk. There are a great many Wrens all along the path from the Italian Garden to the bridge.
This Blue Tit in the Rose Garden has been very shy, but has seen the other small birds being fed and has become confident enough to take a pine nut from the ground.
The Robin was also here, not the one in the shrubbery but one that flies around the rose bushes.
People have started feeding the Rose-Ringed Parakeets here, a shame as they drive the smaller birds away. Perfectly camouflaged in summer, they are absurdly conspicuous when the leaves have fallen.
A Pied Wagtail ran along the water's edge at the Lido, with a brief foray on to the path. You seldom get a sight of what it's catching, but it's probably small insect larvae.
The Grey Herons nesting halfway along the Serpentine island were gathering twigs to repair the nest where they bred successfully last year. Or at least, the heron on the left was working. It chivvied its mate to encourage it to help.
A heron stood on the bowl of the marble fountain at the edge of the Italian Garden, with Cormorants fishing in the water below.
It didn't seem to mind that it was being drizzled with spray from the fountain.
Three Cormorants stood on the roof of a boathouse, far enough apart to avoid a fight but not enough to keep them from growling crossly at each other.
A Great Crested Grebe was fishing around the submerged wire baskets by the bridge, a popular place with all the fishing birds.
A short way along the shore is the place where the Coots gather. It's next to the Triangle car park, so there is always the possibility of food brought by someone in a car who can't be bothered to walk any farther along the shore.
The solitary Moorhen in the Dell was feeding on the lawn. Andrea the Dell gardener tells me that the two young foxes that ate its companions have left, so it may be joined by another in a while.
Two Lesser Black-Backed Gulls passed over a Mute Swan and a Coot. They look very pale, but their apparent colour varies with the way the light falls on them. You can see that the upper one has yellow legs, so it really isn't a Herring Gull.
A Shoveller drake stared up from the Long Water.
There was also a searching glance from the Wigeon at the Round Pond.
No sign of the Little Owl. It looks as if she, and probably her mate with her, have retreated right into their nest tree to keep out of the chilly drizzly windy weather.
A magnolia tree on the edge of the Rose Garden has flower buds. It seems much too early to be starting.
I've read that some trees will pop out buds when they think an x number of cold hours have passed. But I don't think it's been a particularly cold autumn so far in London? (BTW, a linguistic doubt: is fall the same thing as autumn? I fell to thinking that maybe autumn was early autumn and fall was late autumn, like in Russian ранняя осень vs поздняя осень).
ReplyDeleteI wonder why female chaffinches won't pursue you to get pine nuts. Female Great and Blue Tits aren't so timid, right?
Tinúviel
I'd say it has been a fairly ordinary autumn with mild spells and cold spells and a couple of gales, usual enough at this time but of course the climate change idiots got hysterical about them. Yet something has triggered blossom. The dwarf pomegranate tree by the Big Bird statue was in flower a week ago.
DeleteI think that the Chaffinches that come out most readily are the ones with badly virus-affected feet, since their condition retards them and makes them hungrier. Their mates follow them but not so urgently. Male Chaffinches are more exposed to the virus than females, I think because they are more adventurous and so more likely to perch on a virus-covered twig. But that's only a guess.
Ralph the female finch below your pair of Chaffinches is surely a female Greenfinch? Note the much stouter bill & the olive-green cast to the breast/belly.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Careless of me -- I was sent the picture as a Chaffinch and didn't look closely at it. Blog now adjusted.
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