On a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon even the sinister torture mechanisms of the Winter Wasteland looked quite attractive from a distance across the lake. Screams of victims drifted over the water.
A cherry tree in the Dell has blossomed, only one of many plants misled by the mild autumn.
The park was crowded, of course, so most of the small birds were staying in the background. But in the Rose Garden a Blue Tit ...
... and a Coal Tit flew into the usual rose bush to be fed.
The Coal Tit in the Dell called from the corkscrew hazel, asking me to put some pine nuts on the railings.
A row of Feral Pigeons perched on a birch tree between the Dell and the Rose Garden. The grove here is a showcase of different birch species, though these shortlived trees are now getting old and tatty.
Two Robins different from the usual customers: one on the railings of the Diana fountain ...
... and one near the Speke obelisk, which turned out to be an old friend from the west side of the leaf yard and came to my hand.
Two Jays also arrived.
A Wood Pigeon on a holly tree at the northwest corner of the bridge wondered how to reach the last two berries at the tip of the twig.
Wrens could be heard in the bushes but not seen. However, Ahmet Amerikali got a good picture of one in Southwark Park.
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It's usually Common Gulls that start aerial chases, and you can see the white patches on their wingtips as they swirled around the Serpentine. Other gulls joined in.
Herring Gulls were preening on the gravel bank in the Round Pond. Most of them are young. This is because the population is expanding rapidly from the breeding colony on a rooftop in Paddington. They are now spreading over the surrounding area, and in the last few years have become a common sight in Kensington.
A brisk wind over the pond raised waves to bounce the Mute Swans up and down.
The Black Swan knew that when he left the boring peace of the pond to join the higher-ranking swans on the Serpentine there would be conflict, but he can fight his corner and is high in the pecking order.
Almost all the Shovellers have flown out, but one drake could be seen on the Long Water and this immature one on the Serpentine.
There's no shortage of Pochards. Some were resting under a fallen tree at the Vista.
The swans look indignant to be tossed about like that (you can say "toss about" in polite company, right?).
ReplyDeleteHearing the Black-headed Gulls cry, one wonders why we chose to call them "reidoras" (laughing) in Spanish. Galicians had the correct idea when they called them "choronas", "crying ones".
Common Gulls are indeed very uncommon for me! I don't think I have ever seen one.
Tinúviel
I take no notice of polite company, and always try to keep my speech as earthily Anglo-Saxon as I can.
DeleteThe Black-Headed Gull has been booted out of Larus and is now Chroicocephalus (what a mouthful but it does acknowledge that it has a brown head), yet it retains its species name of ridibundus. It doesn't sound like laughter at all to me either.
Common Gulls are the least common of the four species regularly seen in the park: we never get more than 50. But they must be common somewhere.