Generally when you give a pine nut to a Coal Tit it takes it away to hide and eat later, but this one in the Rose Garden decided to have it at once. Coal Tits like to live in the stone pines that produce these seeds, so they are a favourite food.
There were plenty more takers here: the other Coal Tit with a Blue Tit ...
... another Blue Tit with a Great Tit ...
... and the Robin in the hawthorn.
The day wouldn't be complete without a visit from the Robin at Mount Gate.
Blackbirds are constantly seen lurking at the back of the bushes east of the Lido, where there are several blackthorns providing abundant sloes for them. I think they nested here earlier, as I have seen several together on the ground ...
... but this old nest seems too big and twiggy for a Blackbird, though smaller than a typical Magpie nest.
Rose-Ringed Parakeets foraged on a barren patch near the Queen's Temple. Usually when they're on the ground they're eating dandelion leaves, but I couldn't see what the attraction was here.
Another Common Gull has arrived at the Lido, a little one hardly larger than the Black-Headed Gulls either side of it.
The first Common Gull was right at the other end of the swimming area and taking no notice of it.
Most of the Common Gulls in the park congregate at the Round Pond, and here they are quite social birds.
Pigeon Eater had a background of floating leaves by the Dell restaurant.
A fallen Lombardy poplar at the Peter Pan waterfront has become a favourite hangout for the remaining Cormorants on the Long Water.
The single Great Crested Grebe chick from the nest at the bridge is almost completely grown up and only retains faint traces of its juvenile stripes.
The one at the east end of the lake is less advanced, but both are now fishing for themselves and only pestering their parents occasionally.
A Grey Heron in the Dell was looking for fish on the upper side of the small waterfall.
If the fish in the top half of the small stream are swept over the fall they can't get back, and indeed there do seem to be more fish on the downstream side. Here they have to avoid going down the drain to the Thames, or into the pump that powers the top cascade of the big waterfall. Nevertheless, fish seem to abound in this awkward habitat.
Some autumn colour: a red sweetgum by the Diana fountain, with a yellow poplar on the other side of the lake ...
... a Japanese maple by the bridge ...
... and a clump of stinking iris by the Vista.









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