Mid-May wildlife walk in St. James's Park, London

In the middle of May my camera took me on yet another wildlife searching walk in one of my favourite London parks - St. James's.  It was the time of year for babies and I came across several varieties.  The photographs below show largish Greylag goslings that are still very fluffy and cute.

In this photograph there are two Red Crested Pochard drakes and two ducklings.

At the top of the photo are two sleepy Tufted ducks.  Three Red-crested Pochard ducklings are spread about between two adult drakes.

The ducklings are now in closer formation with one of the Red-crested Pochard drakes keeping a beady red eye on them.

There was a mother Mute swan, annoyingly with her back to me, preening next to her four young fluffy cygnets.  They were on the other side of the lake to where I was standing, so I was lucky that the cygnets can be seen at all.

I walked further round the lake and found a large Coot chick standing in the water at the edge of the lake.  It has already got enormous feet!

Swimming serenely in the lake was a beautiful black swan.  In this photograph a coot is swimming in the opposite direction to the swan.

I came across a Shelduck that was walking along the path at the edge of the lake.

At the other end of the lake, someone was feeding red berries to a Coot family.  Here the adult has a berry in it's mouth, while the Coot chicks wait quite patiently to be fed.

Both parents were on hand to help out with lunch for their chicks.

The next stop, at the other side of the lake, was in order to photograph these five Fulvous Whistling ducks.

A Ruddy Shelduck was standing amongst the daisies near the water's edge.

A Greylag goose couple swam past with their one young gosling.

Standing on the gravel near the edge of the lake was a Hooded Merganser drake and his brown female companion.

A Smew drake was trying to get some rest and had his head tucked into his body.

A Smew in eclipse plumage was sitting nearby.

A heron was trying to look more attractive by standing in front of a bunch of yellow irises.

The grey heron turned his head and made noises at some of the other birds.

Swimming backwards and forwards in the lake were the park's three white Pelicans.  It was nearly their lunch-time and they were anxiously waiting for the park keeper to come and feed them with some fish.

A little further on there was a Bar-headed goose mum with her hybrid partner and their three young goslings.  He was looking one way and she was looking the other while their youngsters were looking for lunch in the grass.

Mum Bar-headed goose looks very sweet with her young goslings gathered around her in this photograph.

As usual, there were lots of great waterbirds and their young to keep me amused during another lovely walk in the park.