Herons nesting already?

It looks as if the Grey Herons on the nest halfway along the Serpentine island are sitting already. It's impossible to be sure, but in this picture you can just see the head of a heron at the top right. If they really have started, this is the earliest nesting I've ever seen in the park.

The young heron that hangs around the Lido restaurant was fishing in the cut reeds.

At the far end of the reed bed where the landing stage is, the dominant Black-Headed Gull was in the water patrolling its territory.

A Common Gull looked neat and tidy on the edge.

A Pied Wagtail ran past.

The youngest Great Crested Grebe was at the east end of the lake fishing with its mother.

An older teenager from the nest at the bridge cruised up the reed bed on the Long Water opposite Peter Pan. It only has a faint trace of juvenile stripes now.

It took no notice when two Coots started fighting next to it.

A Moorhen rummaged through a patch of fallen leaves in the Dell, looking for insects and worms.

A single Redwing appeared in a tree in the scrubby ground west of the leaf yard. Although these are flocking birds we only see stragglers before mid-January, when the Winter Wasteland has been dismantled leaving a huge area of ruined ground in which worms have somehow survived. Then large flocks of Redwings arrive to haul them up.

On the other side of the leaf yard, a Wren perched on a dead shrub ...

... and a Goldcrest was jumping around in a yew.

A Rose-Ringed Parakeet chewed leaf buds on a tree in the Rose Garden. They are wasteful feeders, just squeezing the sweet sap from the bud and spitting it out before going on to the next bud. A flock of parakeets can completely wreck a tree.

A Robin paused under the tree on its way to look for worms in the shrubbery.

The Little Owl at the Round Pond didn't appear till the light was failing.

A slow day

After yesterday, when the weather was foul and there was plenty to see, today the weather was pleasant but there was very little action. Even the reliable Little Owl was very hard to photograph, with the sun shining into the camera in the only place where you could get a view of her.

In the Rose Garden a Jackdaw ate a peanut on a branch. This hadn't come from me: unfortunately the garden has now attracted crowds from the Wasteland feeding the Rose-Ringed Parakeets, which is having a bad effect on the small birds that live here.

Still, there were the usual Robins in the shrubbery.

A flock of Blue Tits ranged along the edge of the lake near the bridge.

A Carrion Crow perched on the stump where I photographed the Oyster Mushrooms yesterday, making a sinister shot.

More were hard at work where plants have been cut down beside the stream in the Dell. There must be insects and worms in here, but it's not clear why this place was so attractive. One found a couple of red berries, but that seemed to be pure chance.

There was no one on the terrace of the Lido restaurant, so a Pied Wagtail had the run of the place and checked under the tables and chairs for insects attracted by spilt food.

The young Grey Heron that is usually here found no one to feed it, and went off to fish beside the reed bed to the east of the Lido. But someone arrived to feed the killer swan's family, disturbing the peace it needed. It soon flew off to find a quieter spot.

One of the herons on the island was pulling off twigs to add to the newly occupied nest.

All the white Feral Pigeons in the park have some black tail feathers, and this has been the case for years. There must be some local families with consistent colour patterns. It's strange, for example, that the predominant colouring among London pigeons is not the original light grey Rock Dove pattern but the darker grey speckled pattern that pigeon fanciers call Blue Chequer.

Black-Headed Gulls hovered and bickered by the Dell restaurant where someone was throwing bits of bread in the air.

A Common Gull soared gracefully over them ...

... and the pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull stood below, looking around for his next victim.

The dark Great Crested Grebe, which seemed to have a mate a few days ago, was by itself again. Unusually for a grebe, it's been alone for some time.

The pair of Moorhens in the Dell preened on their favourite rock.

Gadwalls at the Vista upended to find food, and Shovellers revolved. A Coot swam past and added a third technique, diving to the bottom.

Singing in the rain

Rainy days keep the crowds away, so there are often good opportunities for pictures.

Song Thrushes quite often sing in winter, and today there were three singing around the Long Water. They're happy when it rains, as this brings up worms.

The usual Chaffinch turned up at the Round Pond, demanding one pine nut after another.

A Great Tit ...

... and a Jay were also looking expectant in the yellow leaves of a hornbeam tree, the only bright spot in the drab winter landscape around the pond.

The Little Owl was sheltering in her hole.

The usual pair of Magpies by the Long Water were waiting in a tree with yellow bark. Since it has no leaves now I can't identify it.

Tom got a video of Waxwings in Colchester yesterday.

Some have now been seen in west London. But the chances of them coming to the park are slim, because there aren't nearly enough trees with berries, and what there is has been stripped by Wood Pigeons, Starlings and Rose-Ringed Parakeets.

The mate of the pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull was having her turn eating the latest kill near the Lido, and didn't want her son interfering till she'd had her fill.

The old Grey Heron was standing on the Henry Moore sculpture looking soggy and sad.

The heron with the red bill at the island was on the nest, equally depressed.

But a Tufted drake on the shore below was waterproof and cheerful.

The young female Mute Swan from Regent's Park stepped nimbly ashore at the Dell restaurant. Although fully grown she's very small, and much lighter on her feet than the huge waddling males.

Normally there would be nothing remarkable about a picture of three swans in the middle of the Serpentine, but this is the first time I've seen swans returning to their usual place since the killer swan imposed his reign of terror and forced them to the east end. They had reached slightly west of the island.

The noisy Egyptian Geese on the sawn-off tree near the Serpentine Gallery had fallen silent, as they were having to compete with the din of a chainsaw and a wood chipper a few yards away.

A Moorhen in the Italian Garden took advantage of rain-wetted feathers to have a preen.

A clump of Oyster Mushrooms seemed about to deliver a dire fungal prophecy.

Robins making themselves heard

As the cheesy strains of 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland' boomed over the Rose Garden, the Robins were having to yell their little heads off to be heard.

A male Chaffinch was looking for insects and fallen seeds in the shrubbery by the bridge. This isn't the one who flies out immediately he sees me and expects pine nuts to the thrown into the air for him to catch, though I had fed that one earlier beside the Round Pond.

The Little Owl wasn't visible until after 3 pm, by which time the light was getting very dim.

The female Peregrine was by herself on the tower. I didn't see her mate all day.

A Carrion Crow stood on the small waterfall in the Dell. This place is used by Grey Wagtails as a fishing station, and Moorhens can pick small creatures out of the algae, but I don't think there's anything for a crow here. It was probably planning some horrible exploit.

A Pied Wagtail running up the shore of the Serpentine paused to stare curiously at the camera.

Black-Headed Gulls hovered in the wind, waiting to snatch bits of bread someone was throwing in the air.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull had already had lunch, as a carcass on the edge of the lake showed, and was standing in the shallows guarding his territory.

He saw a young Herring Gull intruding and chased it off.

A Grey Heron was busy on the recently reoccupied nest on the island. This nest was used last season, but much later when the leaves had come out. You can't get a good view now but it was impossible then.

The young heron from the Lido restaurant was on a handrail in the swimming area, looking aggrieved ...

... because it had been evicted from its begging station on the edge of the terrace by the arrival of the killer Mute Swan and his family.

A pair of Egyptian Geese were making a racket on a sawn-off tree by the Serpentine Gallery.

A Canada Goose slurped its way along like a larger version of a Shoveller, evidently getting the same mixture of floating algae and any small aquatic creatures that happen to be around.

One of the young Moorhens from the Italian Garden was foraging along the grass at the edge. It's still showing no sign of coming out of its teenage brown into adult colours.

The usual air ambulance flying from Buck Hill was joined by this one, which landed next to the Wasteland. I've often wondered whether people get heart attacks on the violent rides. The helicopter is a Leonardo AW169 of the Kent Surrey Sussex Ambulance Charity, registration G-LNAC.

The spotters on Flightradar24 report events so thoroughly that we know it had arrived from Redhill and was on it way to Rochester, and this was its second London visit of the day.