The travels of gulls

A Robin singing by the leaf yard allowed an extreme close-up shot.

Another perched on the sagging stem of the Chilean rhubarb in the Dell. The plant never does well here, and its enormous leaves get shredded by larvae. The patch by the Italian Garden thrives and spreads, perhaps because it's in the open and gets more light.

A Robin sang from the clump of aucuba in the Flower Walk, whose dreary spotted leaves are seen in planters in a thousand housing estates, probably because it's unkillable.

The Coal Tits in the Rose Garden were making photography as difficult as possible, but I managed to get one in a rose bush ...

... and the other in the cedar just outside the western gate.

This perfectly shaped cedar looks exactly like the one on the Lebanese flag, and once a Lebanese tourist asked me to take a picture of him under it so that he could send it to his family at home.

There was a Pied Wagtail under the counter of the snack bar at the boat hire building. I hadn't seen one here before, but where food is sold crumbs are dropped, crumbs attract insects, and the wagtails go to hunt them.

A Jackdaw appeared at the Lido, asking politely for a peanut.

A Herring Gull had knocked the Common Gull off its favourite perch on the solar panel.

Pigeon Eater was pretending not to notice a Feral Pigeon as it came down to bathe. The pigeon was aware of the danger and kept its distance.

I've heard more about the cosmopolitan Black-Headed Gull mentioned on Wednesday. Originally ringed as an adult at Odense in Denmark, since then it has been seen at Huissen in the Netherlands, Eskön in Sweden, twice in Paris, and in London at the Brent and Wood Green reservoirs and in the park here on several occasions, the last of them on the Round Pond on 15 July this year.

I mentioned to Augustin Le Roux, who sent the Paris pictures, that there were no gulls at all in central London until they arrived about 1890. He told me that this was the case in inland cities throughout Europe, and quoted the Swiss ornithologist P. Géroudet (1958): 'This phenomenon began simultaneously in various parts of Europe during the last quarter of the 19th century, and then extended quickly to other cities, maybe because of laws protecting gulls.' The tendency of gulls to quickly copy successful behaviour, and the wide travels of some of them, must also have been an important factor.

Now that almost all the cormorants have gone, the Grey Herons are reclaiming the island. A young one stood on the Cormorants' favourite dead branch ...

... and adult fished from a wire basket ...

... and a pair were displaying in a nest.

The young Great Crested Grebe at the east end of the lake was fishing busily along the edge ...

... but always glad to see a parent approaching with a fish.

A Coot was eating ice cream from a dropped cone.

The young Egyptian Goose was returning with its parents from grazing on the lawn near the Triangle. It's hardly limping at all now.

A Common Pochard drake washed, preened and flapped at the Lido.

The two Red-Crested Pochard drakes here are remarkably idle and I've never managed to get a picture of either of them doing anything.