Sitting heron

When you start seeing more of a particular species it's hard to know whether numbers are really increasing or whether you're just noticing them more, or -- if you're feeding them -- that word is getting out among them and more are coming to be fed. This is happening with Coal Tits, the least numerous of the three kinds of tits in the park. Today there was a pair I'd not met before in a tree near the Serpentine Gallery.

This was in addition to the pair in the Flower Walk, which I missed today, and the pairs in the Rose Garden ...

... the Dell ...

... and at Mount Gate.

The male Robin here came out at once on the railings ...

... but the female was in a mood and had to be coaxed out of a bush with calling and pine nuts.

It's a hard life for a Pied Wagtail in midwinter, with very few flying insects to catch though there are occasionally some midges. The usual female on the Serpentine was running up and down the shore at the Lido restaurant looking for small larvae. She can keep herself fed only by constant hunting.

The Feral Pigeon destringing group was at work by the Dell restaurant. Pigeons get all kinds of things wrapped round their legs: thread from discarded and decaying clothes, fishing line, and even human hair. It can tighten, cutting off circulation to the foot, and be quite hard to remove. The preferred tool is Spencer scissors designed for removing surgical sutures, which have a little hook on the end of one blade. The job takes three people, one to attract pigeons by feeding, one to catch any that have strings, and one to remove the strings.

Yes, there is a sitting Grey Heron in one of the middle nests on the island. It's very hard to see in the high nest, but in this picture you can just get a glimpse of a grey back in the middle and the black top of a head on the left.

The heron at the northwest corner of the bridge kept a lookout from an oak tree.

The number of Common Gulls slowly builds up to about 50 in midwinter, most of them on the Round Pond, but they also like to congregate and preen on the plastic buoys around the Lido swimming area.

A Great Crested Grebe by the bridge gave the camera a quizzical glance ...

... before going back to fishing.

The Black Swan was following his old girlfriend. She was visibly annoyed at being stalked.

He also has to keep up his high status on the Serpentine. He cruised briskly past some squabbling Herring Gulls, wings raised in threat, and launched a random attack on a Mute Swan that had done nothing to offend him.

The single teenaager was with both parents by the Dell restaurant. It's had a very protected life so far.

The Egyptian Geese in the Italian Garden trotted round the kerb of a pool towards someone they hoped would feed them. They don't seem to have any contact with other Egyptians, apart from shouting at any pair hat happens to fly over.