A surprise Little Owl

A great surprise on a freezing day: a male Little Owl calling from a lime tree by the Serpentine Gallery. I'm fairly sure that this is the one hatched nearby last year, as his father is absolutely tiny.

Of course the small birds were furiously hungry, and there was a lot of feeding to be done. A Robin looked out from the corkscrew hazel bush in the Flower Walk ...

... and another waited in a frozen flower bed in the Rose Garden.

The Coal Tits were in the cercis bush.

The male Chaffinch looked down from the pergola.

A Great Spotted Woodpecker called from the top of a tree near Temple Gate.

Starlings bathed in the icy Serpentine. Understandably they didn't stay in long.

A Jackdaw was waiting on the edge.

A Jay flew into a tree by the Vista.

In the Long Water below a pair of Great Crested Grebes were hemmed in by the ice. They can't fly out because they need a long takeoff run on water, and they're hopeless at walking, so they're stuck. They were diving when I first saw them, and they can catch fish under the ice, but they seemed aware of their plight and quite agitated. Tonight is another freezing night but it's the last one. As long as they can keep a clear patch of water by moving around, they have a reasonable chance.

The single grebe on the Serpentine still has plenty of open water. There is a slight wind which, with luck, will keep the lake here from freezing any more -- but that doesn't affect the Long Water which is sheltered by trees and always freezes quickly.

Coots are much less sure-footed on ice than the Moorhen I filmed yesterday.

These are two of three young Mute Swans in one of the few clear patches on the Long Water.

There were two more on the Serpentine, not counting the solitary teenager at the far end. At eleven this morning the sixth young swan was seen flying from the Long Water, having somehow managed to take off from the short open stretch. It was headed south, and when I passed the Serpentine later it had not come down there. Let's hope it doesn't get lost.

The single young Egyptian Goose has been thrown out by its parents and is now not seen every day. It was at the east end of the Serpentine, and hurried over to be fed.

The Pochards have had to leave the Long Water. There were a few on the Serpentine but it looks as if most of them have flown away. They migrate, so they know their way around.

A Grey Heron was fishing from the nesting basket at the Triangle.

There are still two Cormorants on the Serpentine, which were perched on their favourite dead branches at the island.

Patricia shot this video on her phone at half past eight this morning. A fox ventured out on the the frozen Long Water, where the ice is already thick enough to bear its weight. A goose fled, and in the second clip you can hear the call of an agitated Egyptian.