Bird walk in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens - mid January - Part 2

As I continued my walk along the edge of the Serpentine in Hyde Park last Friday, I decided to take some photographs of gulls - to see if I could identify them later.  I believe that this is a Yellow-legged gull, but hard to tell without being able to see it's legs.  If I am wrong, please would someone let me know?

I think that this one is a Lesser Black-backed gull.  Again, it would be great if someone could confirm this or, if not, please let me know what brand of gull it is.

I know that this is a Black-headed gull - one of the few on the lake with the dark head colouring.

I went to look at what was happening bird-wise at the Diana Fountain and discovered a Carrion Crow having a bath - not that you would know that it was a crow in this pose!

Two of the crows had a bath while I was watching.  Here, one had just got out of the water and the other was still paddling.  Two of their pals were dining on the grass.

Also on the grass near the fountain were some Starlings.  This one has just pulled a worm out of the ground.  Ugh!!!

There was a short row of Mute swans on the lake just outside the area of the Diana Fountain, with more swans in the distance by the arches of the bridge that divides the Serpentine in Hyde Park and the Long Water in Kensington Gardens. 

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A Grey Squirrel and  Magpie were side-by-side on the ground not far from the Leaf Yard in Kensington Gardens.

Round the other side of the Long Water I saw several Cormorants preening and drying their wings while standing on a tern raft in the middle of the water.

Back in the Rose Garden, where I began my walk, I came across this blackbird hopping around on the grass.

A Robin was perching on the almost bare branches of a small winter-flowering cherry that was by a hedge in the shrubbery.  This was very near to the bird feeder that is usually covered by Rose-ringed Parakeets.

A Robin, mostly covered by leaves, and a Chaffinch were hopping around on the ground below the bird feeder.  Unfortunately, the Chaffinch is a bit blurred - but it is my first photograph of this bird, so I decided to add it to this post anyway.

Greylag Goose with large piece of French bread being followed in Hyde Park

The last time my camera took me for a walk round the Serpentine in Hyde Park, on Sunday, I saw a Greylag goose with a large piece of French bread in it's beak.  This caused a lot of interest from the other geese in the area and ended up with a game of pass-the-parcel!

A Canada goose was closely following the Greylag.

The Greylag was quickly surrounded by other hungry geese.

The goose managed to stop off for a quick bite, but was being pursued by a Canada goose.

The Canada goose managed to steal the bread, but it was soon it was harassed by a young gull, who managed to get the largest piece.  Meanwhile two Greylag geese were having a loud argument.

Then it was time for the Canada goose to get into action and try to get the large piece of bread back.

The young gull managed to hang onto it.

No, it was back in the Canada's beak.

Not for long - a Greylag was running off with the spoils stuck onto the end of it's beak.

Time to get a quick bite before someone else grabbed the bread.

Trees, Eurasian Teal and Little Egret in Rheidol Valley and Ynys Hir nature reserve, West Wales

I am afraid I am still on catch-up with my blog posts - I've got lots of catching-up to do!  Now I am at the end of March when I went on holiday to Gwbert, near Cardigan, in West Wales with my sister, brother-in-law and a couple of friends.  We stayed in a great self-catering house with picture windows overlooking Cardigan Bay.

On the day after we arrived, Saturday, we went on the Vale of Rheidol steam railway that runs along the edge of the valley between Aberystwyth and Devil's bridge.  At the station I saw this gull promenading along the opposite platform.

The view from the train was really lovely.  There were lots of bare-branched trees so we saw more than we would have done had we been there in the summer when the leaves would have been blocking our view.

There was a river running along the bottom of the valley, which could be seen through the trunks of the many trees that lined the route.

The sun was shining and there were lots of rolling Welsh hills in the distance.

In one section of the valley there was a large reservoir that was bordered by a wood along one side.

I have to say that the view from the railway line was very spectacular during the whole journey.

Here there is a waterfall running down from one of the hills on the opposite side of the valley.

At Devil's Bridge we stopped for a while as the steam engine was uncoupled.  It was moved along the track to the other end of the station before travelling back along the second rail to the front of the carriages ready to be rejoined for our journey back to Aberystwyth.

We are now on our way back along the railway line.

After we got back to the house, in the late afternoon, my sister and I walked to the end of the cliffs in Gwbert.  There, below us on the rocks, were three oystercatchers.  Unfortunately, they were some distance away so I could not take a very clear photograph.

On Sunday we went to visit Cardigan castle, which is very small and not really worth photographing as it is more-or-less just a rebuilt manor house, with very little of the original building left.  It was very hot and sunny so we decided to go for a walk on Poppits Sands.  Here we saw a man with a trotting pony and colourful blue cart/trap.  The pony was trotting backwards and forwards along the beach and in the sea.

Later the same day we went to the RSPB nature reserve at Ynys Hir.  Here I saw this male Eurasian Teal.

 And this female Eurasian Teal.

There were several male and female Eurasian Teals swimming around in one of the lagoons. 

I also saw this white Little Egret which, unfortunately, was in the distance and so I could not get any clear photographs of it.

It was moving along the water's edge at quite a speed, paddling with it's big yellow feet.

I hope to soon post more news of the rest of the week's wildlife spotting, which includes red kites at a feeding station, domestic Cayuga ducks, group of Wigeon and another Little Egret in the Teifi estuary.