Blossom time

A Wood Pigeon ate the buds of the blossom of a myrobalan tree in the Rose Garden.

Lower in the same tree, a Blue Tit waited for service ...

... and a martenitsa hung. This is a Bulgarian or other Balkan charm given to a loved one on Baba Marta Day, 1 March, and worn until a Swallow, a Stork, or a flowering tree is seen, and then hung in the tree. The Swallows must arrive earlier in Bulgaria, as we don't have any yet, and Storks are not to be hoped for.

A Blue Tit seen near the Buck Hill shelter went into a tiny hole in an old tree, where evidently it will be nesting.

The female Chaffinch appeared in the Flower Walk.

A Starling sang its scrappy song in a tree near the Rose Garden.

Ahmet Amerikali found one of the Long-Tailed Tits in the leaf yard carrying a feather to line its nest.

He also got a notable coup in Battersea Park: a Firecrest. These are very seldom seen here, and in all my time in the park I've only seen two and never got a picture.

The female Little Owl came out briefly on a branch but found the Saturday crowds annoying and went back in her hole.

The three Grey Heron chicks were shuffling around in the nest at the east end of the island.

At the upper nest, an adult perched in a branch above the nest to get away from its two demanding young.

There really are a lot of herons in the park now. As well as the four pairs on the island there is the young one in the Dell stream ...

... and on the Long Water, another young one reclining on the gravel strip ...

... three more along the east shore ...

... and one on a fallen tree opposite Peter Pan.

And that's only the ones I saw today: there may well be more.

The three pairs of Great Crested Grebes on the Serpentine are jostling for territory, and one got chased off another pair's patch.

The Egyptian Geese on the Serpentine are now down to three goslings ...

... but the pairs on the Round Pond are holding on to nine ...

... and six, which shows the difference in survival when there are fewer Herring Gulls.

Yesterday I mentioned the odd memorial by the leaf yard with a small casket, evidently of ashes, and a trowel hung on a tree which I thought commemorated a park gardener. Abigail had seen and photographed it earlier, when there was a name plate wedged in the bark of the tree. The gardener can have hardly have been called Shanty, so it was most likely a dog -- but in that case, what was the trowel for? 

However, today some small-scale grave robber had taken everything away.