30th November

I was greeted with a hard frost when I arrived at Bushy Park this morning. Regent’s Park (where I live) was hovering around zero mark. I had a few meeting to attend today so didn’t really do much birding apart from 1/2 an hour by Heron Pond. There was nothing out of the ordinary there but I did see 35 Redwings fly north.

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Dawn from my office.

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Heron Pond from the western end looks bad, but move to its eastern end and it is a different story.

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This stupid cygnet could have swam around this ice but chose to be an ice breaker.

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I thought it was a bad idea and much to cold to go paddling, this Heron proved me wrong.

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He very skilfully managed to separate the fish from the leaves.

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This Coot really didn’t like Moorhens coming to close to him.

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Tufted/Red crested Pochard Hybrid

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Tufted Duck for comparison

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Not that I like Canadas but I thought the photo was reasonable.

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I had to pop into Kingston, my reward for putting up with queues of traffic was a superb female Peregrine eating a pigeon on the Town Hall, later on it had moved to the weather vein.

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I am sorry for the poor quality, I digi-binned them.

Comments

birdman_euston said…
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birdman_euston said…
1 Dec:
Misty with hoar frost on the ground at dawn.

41 Shoveler, 4 Teal, 11 Mute Swan (including a flock of five adults that stopped off briefly around 11am), 10 Common Gull (all four of the above totals are season-highs for me), 2 Little Grebe, 1 Great Crested Grebe (both season-lows), 3 Gadwall, 1 Stock Dove (the first I've seen this autumn, flying down the northeast arm of the lake and landing in a tree on Heron Island, area 8 at 08:35), 1♀ Sparrowhawk (Winfield House garden, area 4).

The variety of bright berries (e.g. rowan and crabapple), and the birds that eat them (apart from blackbirds), are significantly reduced from a week ago.
birdman_euston said…
Also a juvenile Cormorant on a lake fencepost, the first subadult I've seen this autumn - seems strange I haven't seen a juvenile before now.
Thanks for the news, I don't need the weather report though just bird news. There are plenty of stock doves around, I still have at least 20 in my garden.
birdman_euston said…
Noted, Tony. (Stock Doves, like Collared Doves when they're around, seem to be very local in the Park area - eg. I haven't seen them joining the Woodpigeons and Feral Pigeons under the Cricket Pen feeder this autumn.)