Green parakeets - are they kissing?

I love visiting the London Wetland Centre in Barnes, where there are some fairly exotic captive birds and also lots of visitors that fly in from far and wild - or not so far.

I last visited on a cold and cloudy March day.  Just before the centre closed, when I was leaving, I was treated to what looked like a courting display from the two green ring-necked parakeets that are on the right-hand side of the bare-branched tree in the photo below.  As you can see, the light level was not good and I have not yet got to grips with the settings on my camera - having only recently started taking photos of birds and nature.

They were sitting a short distance apart on the branch, then they leant over and appeared to be kissing!

They parted company:

and then they were back at it!

This is the view from the other side of the tree:

More kissing!

Well, I suppose it shows us that this was Spring - whatever the temperature!

Great Cresed Grebes courting in Lee Valley Country Park

On a recent cold day I went for a walk in Lee Valley Country Park with a group from the RSPB.  Our last port of call was the Grebe Hide, where we were treated to a great courting display.  Unfortunately, the Great Crested Grebes were quite far away and, even with my lens at longest zoom, these photos are the best I could manage.

At first there were actually 3 Great Crested Grebes, but one of the males soon got rid of his rival.  This happened too far away for me to get any photos at all, but I could see the aggression through my binoculars.

Then the chase got going:

Male and female Great Crested Grebes

Mr and Ms eventually got closer together:

Great Crested Grebes

and then closer:

Courting Great Crested Grebes

and then extremely close:

Is it one Grebe with two heads??

They did a lot of head bobbing, which I was unable to photograph.  They then parted and chased one another around for a while before getting back together and repeating the whole process.  It was fascinating.  I would have stayed longer, but I was freezing and the group were leaving to get the train back home.

It was a great day, with a great amount of birds.  As well as the Great Crested Grebes, I saw a Bittern and lots of Lapwings (photographs in my other posts).