Robin versus worm

A Robin pulled an earthworm out of the ground, a big effort for such a small bird. Whenever it slackened its pull the worm started crawling back in. I filmed it for two minutes and it was still hauling, so I left it. I'm sure it managed in the end. The next stage, also a serious effort, is to peck the worm into bite-sized pieces. This is a meal that has to be really worked for.

The Robin at Mount Gate was glad to come out for a much easier snack of pine nuts.

A Blue Tit in the Rose Garden ate a pine nut that it took from my hand.

A Great Tit waited in the yellow leaves of a wild service tree.

This tree's scientific name, now Torminalis glaberrima, has recently been changed from Sorbus torminalis which put it in the same genus as the rowan S. aucuparia. Torminalis comes from the Latin tormina, colic, for which the astringent fruits were used as a remedy. 'Service' refers to its old use as a flavouring and preservative for beer in the days before hops were brought in -- compare the Spanish word for beer, cervesa.

The Chaffinch pair came out in a rose bush. This is the female.

There was just one Goldfinch in the top of a plane tree, a male alternately twittering and picking seeds out of the spherical fruits.

A black Feral Pigeon sat on the lawn.

The Coal Tit evaded the camera, but the one in the Dell is a bit easier and paused in the corkscrew hazel for long enough to get a picture.

The Jackdaw by the Speke obelisk had brought some of its friends along to ask for peanuts.

A Jay also turned up.

There are so many berries on the holly tree by the bridge that even a Wood Pigeon can't eat them all.

The two Common Gulls on the buoys at the Lido, which used to perch offishly at opposite ends ...

... were only twenty yards apart. Is this the start of a beautiful friendship?

A young Moorhen preened insouciantly right in front of Pigeon Eater. I thought he was going to lunge at it but he let it pass unmolested and flew off to find something else. Evidently he prefers the taste of Feral Pigeons.

A Black-Headed Gull preened in the reflection of autumn leaves in the Long Water.

Although most of the Cormorants have left there was still a little group on the fallen poplar at Peter Pan ...

... and Ahmet Amerikali got a remarkable picture of one just managing to swallow a pike, absolutely the biggest it could get down.

A beautyberry, Callicarpa bodinieri, has produced bright mauve berries in the Flower Walk.

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.

Long-Tailed Tits in the Rose Garden

Trees near the Speke obelisk put on a show of  autumn colours.

There were more Blue Tits in the Rose Garden than usual ...

... as they were flying with a flock of Long-Tailed Tits, one of which posed obligingly in the same small hawthorn.

A Coal Tit was here too, interested in taking pine nuts but hiding the moment I touched the camera. I finally got a fleeting shot in a rose bush.

 There were several Great Tits in the big yew in the Dell ...

... and once they start coming down the Coal Tits notice the movement and appear too, though again it's always a game of hide and seek.

Two Robins within earshot of each other in the Rose Garden sang in rivalry.

Another was watching a gardener digging in the scrubby patch east of the Lido, waiting for him to take a break so that it could fly in and look for turned-up worms.

The one at Mount Gate was already on the railings and didn't need to be called.

Two Starlings sang on a giant flower pot at the Lido restaurant while they waited to raid a table.

A Pied Wagtail ran around the upper balustrade of the Serpentine Gallery ...

... and a young Grey Wagtail used the ornamental stonework at the Saerpentine outflow as a hunting station.

This is the only young Grey Wagtail in the park, and it was hatched in a nest by the bridge. Adults fly in from time to time but there is no established population as there is with Pied Wagtails.

The dominant Black-Headed Gull preened on the landing stage before flying up on to the head of the Big Bird statue to survey his domain.

A Grey Heron returned to the nest at the west end of the island.

A Great Crested Grebe was fishing under the concrete beams supporting the small boathouse. They have more places to fish now that the Cormorants are leaving, but as usual the Cormorants have absolutely massacred the fish in the lake so they have to work quite hard to find anything.

A pair of Mallards rummaged for insects in fallen oak leaves by the leaf yard.

A cosmpolitan gull

This Black-Headed Gull with Danish rings, metal 6J-1833 and white plastic V17U, was seen by the Serpentine on 30 October 2024.

I have just heard from Augustin Le Roux, who photographed the same gull in Paris on 15 November 2022 ...

... and 20 January 2024. So it's a well travelled bird with a taste for city life.

The small Common Gull at the Lido perched beside a Black-Headed Gull. As you can see, it's only very slightly larger.

Pigeon Eater was on his usual spot at the Dell restaurant waiting for a Feral Pigeon to step down into the floating leaves, start preening, and close an eye on his side. The seasoned pigeons would never do such a thing near him but he, the Peregrines and the Sparrowhawks take hundreds of pigeons every year and naive birds flock in from outside to take their place.

The Robin at the southwest corner of the bridge looked up warily at a Magpie on a treetop, but came over for a pine nut.

Ahmet Amerikali found a Goldcrest in the same place. They nest in a yew tree here every year.

A Robin singing in the Rose Garden stopped when it saw me and came out to be fed.

A Coal Tit was in a different rose bush ...

... and there was a Blue Tit in the small hawthorn clump in the middle.

The female Chaffinch in the Flower Walk emerged from under a bush. I haven't seen her mate for some time and fear that he is gone.

Tufted Ducks, with the drakes now in their black and white breeding plumage, dived in the Serpentine.

There were two Shoveller drakes on the Round Pond. We seem to have fewer of these every year, for which I think the main reason is the establishment of wetland sancutaries along the Thames which they prefer.

However, the number of Common Pochards, which are in serious decline nationally, is going up and up in the park for no discernible reason. Here is a drake on the right of two of the larger Red-Crested Pochards, which are not closely related but they share a name because of their red heads. Pochard is a French term for a drunkard.

The young Egyptian Goose is usually seen sitting down on the shore by the boathouses. It can now walk quite well but it seems that its injured leg is still painful and it prefers to keep the weight off it.

Two peaceful places in the busy park.

The lawn around the Diana memorial fountain is enclosed by railiings and dogs are not allowed inside. This has made it a favourite spot for geese, especially Greylags, to graze in peace, especially in colder weather when there are no children running around in the fountain.

The Dell is an area at the foot of the earth dam that holds in the water of the Serpentine, and therefore has a steep slope on one side. It became notorious as London's favourite spot for duelling during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and I have read that 68 people were killed there.

It was landscaped in the 1880s and set out with subtropical plants. In 1922 it was fenced off with railings to act as a wildlife reserve. The waterfall at the lake outflow would be a puny affair if it just consisted of water draining from the lake, so it is boosted bt a large electric pump. Here are autumn views from the bottom and top of the slope, and two side views of the big lawn in the middle.