The Coal Tits have a plan

On a soggy day of rising wind there wasn't much to see, but many of the familiar faces turned up.

The two Coal Tits in the Dell have now settled into a routine. They wait out of sight in the yew tree until a Great Tit comes down to be fed, showing that everything is all right.

Next they peer out cautiously through the leaves, and at this point you can get a picture if you're quick.

Then they start coming down for pine nuts on the railings. When you give a Coal Tit a seed, it doesn't usually eat it at once. It takes it away, hides it in a crevice in a tree, and comes back for more. You can go on feeding them for as long as you have the patience.

The only drawback to this system is that the observant Great Tits often manage to see where the pine nuts are hidden, and steal them when the Coal Tit is away. But I think the Coal Tits get most of their offering.

The Robin in the Rose Garden was waiting again in the usual small hawthorn ...

... and so was the one at Mount Gate among the red leaves and fearsome spikes of the cockspur thorn.

The Wren in the Diana fountain car park was back in the pyracantha. Usually all you see of this bird is a tiny brown blur as it hurls itself from one patch over cover to another.

The catalpa trees near the Italian Garden shed their leaves early in autumn, but there are still some pods for the Rose-Ringed Parakeets. It takes quite a lot of work to get the few seeds out of the pods.

The parakeets are Indian in origin, and one of the names for a catalpa is an Indian Bean Tree -- but this means 'American Indian' since the tree is native to North America. It's only in recent years that the spreading parakeets have discovered that they can get beans out of them.

The Dawn Redwood trees at the east end of the lake are hung with festoons of little green flowers.

The male Peregrine was on the barracks tower, though when the rain increased he disappeared. Probably he has a sheltered place in the ornate concrete fal-lals on top of the building.

The Grey Wagtail in the Dell perched on the grating where the stream goes underground on its way to the Thames just upstream from Chelsea Bridge.

This is the only stretch of the Westbourne river above ground now. The river itself has been reduced to a feeble trickle by building and paving over its catchment area, and the stream has been given an appearance of flow by pumping water from the bottom up to the waterfall at the top of the Dell. It's very shallow, and the resident Grey Heron can wade anywhere without getting out of its depth.

A heron scratched its chin on a railing at the Lido.

A Cormorant dried its wings and preened on a fallen tree by Peter Pan. Over the years most of the Lombardy poplars planted along the edge of the Long Water have collapsed into the lake, providing useful perches for birds.

One of the young Moorhens at the Vista was on the shore. They are beginning to come out of their drab teenage stage and get red bills and yellow feet.

The Great Crested Grebes from the nest by the bridge, trying to feed their chick, were annoyed by Black-Headed Gulls trying to grab the fish.

The grebes dive fast and the gulls never seem to get anything, but that doesn't stop them trying.

The pair at the east end of the island had sensibly parked their two chicks next to a moored boat, making it harder for gulls to swoop on them.

Pied Wagtail at the Round Pond

A Pied Wagtail hunted insects on the grass by the Round Pond. They are almost always to be seen here and probably nest in crevices in the old brickwork of Kensington Palace, where I have seen them flying on to the roof.

I had gone there to check on two things. One was whether the Black Swan, who has left the Serpentine, had returned to the pond, and there he was on the gravel strip.

The other was to try to find the Little Owls, who had spent some time in a lime tree after their original tree was burnt out. After a few weeks they abandoned it, and as far as I know no one has found them again. I certainly didn't.

However, here is a good view of the female Little Owl in Hyde Park, taken by Robin Pettitt.

A Wren came out in the flower bed at the east end of the Lido.

A Robin in the Rose Garden stayed in a bush. This isn't one of the familiar ones, but there are at least six here all singing at each other.

It wouldn't be a proper day without feeding the Robin at Mount Gate ...

... and the Coal Tit in the Dell.

There was a Blue Tit in the same yew tree ...

and another one in the red leaves of the cockspur thorn tree at Mount Gate.

A Great Tit perched in a rowan near the Queen Caroline monument at the east end of the Serpentine.

An exotic visitor: a Red-and-Green Macaw having an outing with his human in the Rose Garden.

A Cormorant perched on a strangely massive handrail which has been installed to help bathers get out of the water at the Lido. There was what seemed a perfectly good rail here but it was condemned for some obscure health and safety reason and this thing, which would support an elephant, substituted.

One of the small boathouses is a popular fishing spot for Cormorants. Its apparently solid brick walls actually rest on reinforced concrete beams which extend only just below water level, so Cormorants and Great Crested Grebes can dive inside and catch the fish which lurk in the shadows.

The grebe chicks at the east end of the island are mostly fed with fish caught under the moored boats.

The single chick from the nest by the bridge raced over to collect a perch.

A pair of Egyptian Geese had a wash and preen together on the edge of the Serpentine.

I don't know what this Tufted Duck is carrying. It looks like a light coloured fig, but who feeds figs to ducks? Anyway she seemed to like it, and was hurrying away to find a quiet place to eat it.

Common Wasps ripped chunks out of a caterpillar in the Rose Garden. They weren't eating it themselves, as adult wasps have an entirely liquid diet. They were taking the bits to their nest to feed their larvae.

Sister owl

A Little Owl watched from the tree in Hyde Park. This one is certainly female, and I think it's the sister of the male I photographed here the day before yesterday, both hatched this year and now grown up.

A family of Greenfinches flitted about in a holly tree by the Long Water. These are only three of half a dozen.

A Wren hunted insects in a pyracantha bush at the Diana fountain car park.

There was another in the Dell ...

... where two Coal Tits put in an appearance ...

... and a Jay was looking for worms.

Spilt crisps by the Serpentine provided two Carrion Crows with the chance to have a mild dispute. They're never as happy as when they're bullying each other.

This Robin in a hawthorn in the Rose Garden is an old friend who comes to my hand, but I don't see him all that often since they destroyed the shrubbery and most of the small birds left.

A female Pied Wagtail hunted along the edge at the Lido. It has an unusual speckled face, and I think it may be a young one not quite yet in adult plumage.

A young Herring Gull washed, shook itself dry, and preened.

One of the odd coloured Lesser Black-Backs was here too.

Yesterday Ahmet Amerikali found a Kingfisher near the Italian Garden, which I missed although I always check the waterside bushes.

He also got a good shot of a Cormorant catching a large carp under the parapet ...

... and one of the Firecrests in Battersea Park.

A young Cormorant on the roof of one of the boathouses had a very white front and looked almost like a penguin.

A Grey Heron waited for a fish to come out of the reed bed by the Serpentine outflow.

A Common Carder bee browsed on a dahlia in the Rose Garden. They vary a lot in colour. Some are a washed-out beige, but this one was such a dark ginger that I had to check carefully that it wasn't a Tree Bumblebee.