Remembering Rudolf Steiner

A Blue Tit in the Rose Garden pecked delicately at a pine nut.

There was a good turnout of Coal Tits, with the pair here ...

... in the Dell ...

... and in the Flower Walk all coming out.

And there was no shortage of Robins, with the familiar one in the rose bush ...

... and near the Buck Hill shelter ...

... and the one at Mount Gate, which I hadn't seen for a few days.

Jays waited near the Serpentine Gallery ...

... and on the path near the Italian Garden. I still haven't found any Jays that will swoop down to your hand to grab a peanut in flight. Perhaps the habit has missed being handed down the generations. It was the Jays' idea and no human trained them to do it.

This pair of Magpies is usually seen by the place where the memorial bench to Rudolf Steiner used to be. That looks like their last season's nest in the background.

Not sure whether the Steiner bench is away for repair or whether it has been scrapped. The Anthroposophical Society, formed by Steiner, still exists and perhaps it would be a good idea to write to them and encourage them to keep up their memorial.

The autumn glut of berries is over and the Wood Pigeons are having to work harder for their food. One lurched around in a Japanese Pagoda Tree trying to get at the fruit, which hangs from the tips of slender twigs and is hard for a heavy bird to reach. It did eventually find one.

Another beside the Long Water searched for ivy berries in vain.

The ugly proliferation of notice boards around the Serpentine has at least benefited the Black-Headed Gulls, and the dominant birds each have their own sign. I didn't see the Czech gull today, but there were two regulars, Blue 2303, whose early developing dark head may be a sign of high status ...

... and Blue 2331. Both gulls were ringed here by Bill Haines, who switched from his original orange rings to blue because the orange blended with the colour of the birds' legs and made them harder to spot at a distance.

A young Grey Heron by the boathouses was facing inshore rather than looking for fish because it was hoping that a passing human might have some titbits for it.

Another was fishing between the two Dell waterfalls. Even in winter the collection of subtropical plants in this carefully engineered landscape is striking, spoilt only by the park management who, with their usual lack of visual sense, have installed an electrical junction box and a bridge that looks like something off an oil rig.

Although most of the Cormorants have left, there remains a group of diehards on the fallen poplar at Peter Pan.

The Black Swan on the Serpentine seems to have regained his high place in the pecking order and was mooching around unmolested. He spotted me from a considerable distance and cruised over for some sunflower hearts.