Unexpected sunshine

An unexpectedly sunny Saturday brought a lot of people into the park, which as usual meant that there wasn't all that much to see in the way of birds. The Wigeon was away from the Round Pond, as the Egyptian Geese which it accompanies were off grazing out of sight. And the Rose Garden was closed off with police tape -- evidently some gruesome crime was committed there last night.

The main scene of activity was the Serpentine island. Two pairs of Grey Herons were adding twigs to their nests, one in the middle of the island, the other at the east end.

Another nest in the middle was occupied ...

... and so was the highest one.

A faint stirring could just be seen in the nest where a heron is sitting on eggs, but not enough to photograph.

The nest-building instinct in Coots is so strong that they can't stop themselves. Here is one at Peter Pan busy in the middle of December, without the slightest intention of actually nesting.

The five teenage Mute Swans were out on the water, enjoying their privileged status. They are in for a shock in the spring when their parents start nesting agin and throw them out.

It seems that the Black Swan seen at Barnes is not ours, as it has been seen here before. I'm still waiting for news from St James's Park.

A Red-Crested Pochard was with some Common Pochards at the Vista. The two species are not at all closely related in spite of their rather similar appearance.

A pair of Gadwalls were feeding at the Lido.

The Diana fountain remains closed for maintenance, giving the Greylag Geese a quiet place to graze away from people and dogs.

A Common Gull perched on the Victorian water level on the south shore of the Serpentine.

The bramble thicket around the hawthorn trees across the path from the Henry Moore sculpture has been cut down, a shame as Chiffchaffs and Long-Tailed Tits nested in them every year. The brambles will grow back, but not in time for the spring nesting season. However, this has exposed the Wren that lives here, and it hasn't been frightened away. It was perched on the stump of a hawthorn branch ...

... hopped over to the trunk ...

... ran up it ...

... and started investigating a hole.

It took some time to attract the small birds in the Flower Walk, but eventually some Great Tits emerged ...

... followed quickly by the usual Robin which started chasing them all over the bushes.

A Magpie looked down from a cherry tree at the Lido, waiting for a peanut.

The peculiar Chinese Rice Paper Tree, Tetrapanax papyrifer, is in full bloom in the Dell.

It's one of the plants left over from the original subtropical planting scheme when the Dell was landscaped in the 1880s. There are also some New Zealand tree ferns, but most of the trees are now fairly ordinary. An exception, though, is the big Dawn Redwoods planted in the 1950s when this tree, believed to be known only from fossils, was discovered growing in China.