A soggy start to February

It was a drizzly day with outbreaks of heavier rain. Visitors sheltered in the Italian Garden loggia.

Thrushes welcome rain, which brings up worms. A Song Thrush near the leaf yard was singing cheerfully in a treetop.

A tall conifer on the south side of the Flower Walk near the Queen's Gate crossing -- I'm not sure whether it's a Western Red Cedar or a Lawson's Cypress -- gives good shelter to small birds. A Coal Tit ...

... and a Blue Tit emerged to collect pine nuts.

Another Blue Tit ...

... and a Great Tit were waiting in a camellia bush behind the Albert Memorial.

This isn't one of the regular Robins. It perched on a stem in the Flower Walk before coming down to pick up some pine nuts from the ground.

A Jay by the Henry Moore sculpture was expecting a peanut.

The female Pied Wagtail skittered about near the boathouses.

Pigeon Eater has been very close to his mate for several days. It seems much too early for them to start breeding but everything is running early this year, started by the warm autumn and unstoppable in spite of recent cold weather.

The Grey Heron sitting in the nest at the west end of the island got up to turn the eggs.

A high nest towards the west end is receiving a lot of attention at the moment. This isn't the one with the chicks in it. Those could be heard too.

A Great Crested Grebe at the east end of the Serpentine called to its mate.

The boss Mute Swan and his new mate were waiting at the Vista to see if anyone would feed them, but on a rainy day there were few people. They took advantage of damp feathers to have a thorough preen.  In the background you can hear the Song Thrush shown in the video above.

Swans fed on the grassy bank at the back of the Lido swimming area.

Shovellers were scooping busily on the Long Water.

The immature drake on the Serpentine never joins them, and perhaps doesn't know they are there. He has already got a green head but will have to wait till next year for the rest of his finery.

Return of the Peregrines

The Peregrine pair were back on the barracks tower. Although I had seen the male here a few times in recent months I hadn't seen his new mate since July, and thought she had deserted him. She looks to be the same bird.

The Grey Herons on the nest at the west end of the island were changing places sitting on the eggs. The one that had been sitting flew off to catch some fish. When the heron sits down it can't be seen from this angle, so you have to go round the tree to get a shot through the branches.

A heron stood in the variegated holly tree at the northwestern corner of the bridge. A few years ago a pair started nesting here, the only nest away from the colony on the island, but nothing came of it and they haven't tried again.

The heron that fishes on the ramp at the Lido shook out its huge wings.

Pigeon Eater and his mate, both now in full breeding plumage, were side by side on the Dell restaurant roof for the second day running. They aren't usually so close. I wish I could find out whether they nest on the roof, but you simply can't see from anywhere on the ground.

A pair of Herring Gulls at the Lido were also looking smart with their fresh white heads.

The Mute Swans 4GZF and 4FUW displayed on the shore nearby.

Cormorants are still fishing under the Italian Garden, though they have made such a thorough job of eating available fish that there's not much left. Ahmet Amerikali found one with a very small catch that it wouldn't have bothered with a month ago.

The Pied Wagtail hunting on the edge of the Serpentine has seen me photographing her so often that she isn't worried any more. She ran past under my feet.

Jackdaws gathered on the slope above the boat hire building, waiting for peanuts.

Three Oriental Sweet Box bushes, Sarcococca orientalis, in the Rose Garden are filling the air with fragrance. They attracted a Blue Tit ...

... a Great Tit ...

... and a hardy but elusive Buff-Tailed Bumblebee, which wouldn't come out for a proper shot and soon buzzed off.

The usual male Chaffinch was in the flower bed below.

There are clumps of tiny Petticoat Daffodils, Narcissus bulbocodium.

A Coal Tit in the corkscrew hazel in the Dell was poised to whizz down to the railings for a pine nut.

The male Robin at Mount Gate came to my hand for the first time.

The female stayed on the railings.

By the time I get to Mount Gate on my usual round in winter the light is beginning to fail, and in order to get reasonable pictures it's necessary to reduce the shutter speed as low as possible. This makes for difficulty when using a 600mm lens at full zoom, and you have to depend on the stabilization of the camera to avoid getting a picture blurred by shake. There is a popular rule that you shouldn't go lower than the length of the lens, so that the slowest speed for a 500mm lens would be 1/500 second. That is quite impractical, and this picture was taken at 1/125 second. Some of the shots do get a bit smudged at this speed, but you can take lots and select the sharpest.

The first Grey Heron chicks

The first Grey Heron chicks have hatched in the top nest on the island. The eggs would have been laid in late December, and the chicks are already a few days old, now large enough to be heard clacking their beaks to beg for food. They won't be visible in this high nest until they are large enough to look over the rim. The movement visible in the nest is the other parent.

Jenna filmed this on her phone soon after dawn. A young Herring Gull had caught one of the two remaining Egyptian goslings and swallowed it whole.

Pigeon Eater was on the Dell restaurant roof with his mate.

All three of the top-ranking Black-Headed Gulls were in place: the Czech gull on his post at the east end of the Serpentine ...

... Blue 2331 a hundred yards along the shore ...

... and the one who owns the landing stage by the Diana fountain.

The Black Swan was obsessively following 4GIQ all over the lake.

The female Pied Wagtail was hunting near the island. Her mate flew by and she took off after him, and they sped away twittering at each other.

A Robin in a bush on Buck Hill ticked crossly at a Magpie and flew down into cover.

The Robin in the Dell was trying to monopolise the pine nuts I had put on the railings ...

... for the pair of Coal Tits, which simply went round it to collect theirs.

The Coal Tits at the southwest corner of the bridge ...

... and the Chaffinch in the Rose Garden are hesitant to pick up their offerings, and it takes some time to get them fed.

Not so this Jay by the bridge ...

... and Jackdaw on the Parade Ground, which swoop down instantly fro their peanuts.

The small flood caused by a defective drain at the Vista attracted a couple of Feral Pigeons. For some reason they enjoy sitting in shallow water, even on cold days.

A fox is often seen coming out to sun itself on a fallen tree opposite Peter Pan.

Works and days

The boss Mute Swan and 4DTT had a post-mating display on the Long Water. She still hasn't shown any interest in the nesting island, but no doubt the boss will demonstrate its usefulness to her by the usual ritual of ripping up plants and throwing them about.

The Black Swan has hijacked 4GIQ from her rightful mate again, and was with her at the landing stage. She really does follow him freely, which is not the way for a supposedly faithful swan to behave.

The lone teenager was with his parents again at the east end of the Serpentine, still not going near any other swans though the boss's six teenagers are now completely integrated into the society on the lake.

A pair of Great Crested Grebes displayed at the west end of the island.

In the tree above the nesting pair of Grey Herons were changing places. They take it in turns to sit on the eggs.

Pigeon Eater now has the pure white head of his breeding plumage and looks very smart.

The dominant Black-Headed Gull had been pushed off the head of the Big Bird statue by a Carrion Crow, which was clearly pleased with itself.

A crow in the wreckage of the Wasteland pulled up a bit of dead turf to see if there were any worms underneath.

There are still no interesting visitors here, but there's plenty of time.

A Blue Tit perched in an osmanthus bush in the Rose Garden ...

... and another was looking expectant on a bench.

Both Coal Tits were waiting in a rose bush ...

... and the pair in the Dell were chasing each other through the big yew tree.

The female Robin at Mount Gate came out on the railings.

This is the mate of the familiar Robin by the Buck Hill shelter, still shy and difficult to feed.

It doesn't take much to start Feral Pigeons gathering into a frantic mob. Wood Pigeons are fewer and slower, and you can see that what attracted both is breadcrumbs that someone threw down.

The familiar Pied Wagtail hasn't been visible for a while, so it was good to see her back hunting on the edge of the lake by the boathouses.

The broken water pipe in the Italian Garden has been repaired in just two days ...

... but work on the smashed parapet of the bridge has only just got to the stage of lifting the first stone 25 months after the accident.

Apparently the delay was caused by problems with insurance, though I don't know the details. You would suppose that the driver's insurance company would be liable for damage caused by him, and that they would have fought tooth and nail against having to pay millions for major repairs to a historic structure.