Birds and nature - March walk in Battersea Park

On Monday my camera took me out on another walk in a local park - Battersea Park - which is within reasonable walking distance from my flat.  I just walk along Grosvenor Road and then across Chelsea Bridge and enter the park by the gates near the river Thames.

Quite a few of my walks there have not produced that many birds, which is really what my camera likes looking at, but the scenery in the park is always worth photographing whatever the weather.  Unfortunately, it was yet another dull overcast day and I had missed any sunshine that there may have been earlier in the day.  Never mind!  I enjoyed the walk anyway.

The first wildlife I saw on the lake consisted of a pair of Norther Shovelers doing what they are named after - shovelling with their long beaks.  They were going round-and-round in an area with lots of bubbles from a water filter (I presume).

Another Northern Shoveler drake was a little closer to the edge of the lake and stopped shovelling long enough for me to take this photograph showing his long shovel-like beak.

The park is not very colourful at the moment, but in this spot by the edge of the water, there was a sign of Spring - pinky-red Quince blossoms amongst some other cream blossom.  They looked very pretty and were very encouraging as they made me think of warmer weather.

Below is a rather bleak, but attractive, looking view of bare silver-branched trees on the other side of the lake. 

This is a closer view of the silver-branched tree, which had a couple of Cormorants sitting in it's branches.

My walk was brightened up by a row of red Cornus stems that were near the park's Barbara Hepworth statue.

I thought that this was a lovely peaceful scene.

Further round the lake there was another tall bare-branched tree that was home to up to twenty Cormorants that were sitting on it's branches.  The numbers changed as some birds left and others arrived.

This photograph of the Cormorants was taken with my camera at it's highest zoom!

I saw three Mallard friends swimming in the lake - a female with one normal drake and one larger, darker drake with a white bib.  They were together in a small group.

This is the female Mallard.

 This is the large dark Mallard with the white bib.

I took a photograph of the cafe on the other side of the lake.  Behind it, outside the park, are blocks of flats and the two of the chimneys at Battersea Power Station - complete with building cranes.

There were not many people sitting in the area outside the cafe - I wonder why?

There were two herons standing in a nest right at the top of a very tall tree.

By now I had walked all round the lake.  When I got back to the point where I had begun my walk, I discovered this light coloured female Mallard with white markings at the edge of her wings.

She was with her boyfriend - a handsome Mallard drake.  He watched while she preened some of her feathers.

Even on an overcast day, I had a very enjoyable walk round the park and it only started to rain on my way back home!  I was very lucky!