Early April wildlife walk in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens

At the beginning of April, when the sun was shining, my camera took me off for a long walk round the Serpentine and Long Water in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, where I saw a lot of great wildlife.

I began my walk at the Serpentine.  Here a Greylag goose is attempting to eat a soggy twig.  It didn't get very far with it and eventually gave up and went off elsewhere to look for a snack.

Just a little further on there was this handsome Red-crested Pochard drake who was giving me the evil red eye!

His female partner was snoozing on the bank at the edge of the lake.

I walked a little further around the lake and came across this very pretty female Gadwall.

She was accompanied by this rather handsome Gadwall drake.  The weather was sunny, but very windy, so the water was quite choppy.

Nearby was this rather strangely-coloured hybrid Mallard drake.  He has a light brown head rather than the usual iridescent green.

A female Mute swan was snoozing on her nest in the shade while, nearby, her mate was standing in the water and preening his feathers.

An Egyptian goose was standing on the decking near the cafe by the Lido.  I think he/she is half asleep in this photograph.

 It was a very blustery day and the wind caught it's feathers, suddenly giving it a very unkempt look.

As the wind blew more, this Egyptian goose was definitely going through a bad hair day!

The same happened to this rather stately-looking Great Crested Grebe.  One moment it was serenely gliding along the Serpentine.

The next minute, it looked a mess!

At the shallow edge of the Long Water near the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, there were two Mandarin drakes that were brightly illuminated in the sunshine.

Near the bridge on the other side of the Long Water, at the edge of the bank and in the shade, a female Mute swan was standing near her nest.  I could see at least one egg in the nest.

Back at the Serpentine, near the little island, there was a group of Red-crested Pochards.  In this photo there are two drakes with fancy hairstyles and red beaks, plus a less colourful female.

Still in this area, a Mute Swan look an instant dislike to a Greylag goose and chased it round in circles until the goose gave up and flew off.

Here I was also fascinated to watch two members of the Greylag goose synchronised swimming team practising their manoeuvres!  They did very well.

Further along the Serpentine, near the wall at the edge of the cafe, a white Mallard was showing off his friendship with a normal-coloured Mallard!  Who said we were friends?

In the water at the other side of the cafe I saw a Greylag goose with unusual markings on it's face.

On that day there were vast amounts of squawking young Herring gulls causing mayhem by flying around in the air and floating around in the lake.

A Mute swan caught up in the fracas has gone into aggressive mode with it's feathers raised in the air.

 Here another Mute swan must be wondering what it has got itself into!

This young Herring gull appears to be both diving and flying at the same time.

Most of the fuss was caused by tourists, who were throwing pieces of bread to the gulls.  A piece can be seen at the right-hand side of this photograph.

Meanwhile, not far away from the noisy arena full of Herring gulls and seeming blissfully unaware of all the noise, a pair of young Mute swans were making loving overtures to one another.

As it was early April when I went on this walk, I can't possibly miss out on the few photographs of the lovely Spring blossom in the park.  Here is a photograph of some dark pink cherry blossom.

Another tree was overloaded with this amazing pale pinky-white cherry blossom.

Near the rose garden there was another tree covered in beautiful pink/rose apple blossom.

And lastly, the formal planting included these beautiful light and dark pink tulips.

It was a beautiful sunny Spring day in the park - perfect except for the wind that was causing havoc with the bird's feathers and, also, my hair!

Mandarin, Gadwall and hybrid ducks and Spring blossom on an April walk in Battersea Park

In early April I went for another long walk with my camera round the lake in London's Battersea Park.  The Spring blossom was looking very pretty.  Here is a bush covered with white blossom.  I don't know what it is so, if anyone recognises it, can they please let me know.

The hybrid mallard drake that I saw during my previous walk in the park in mid-March was still there.  Here he is swimming in the lake with a couple of coots.

The pink cherry blossom was looking spectacular on this large tree that was growing near the path that meanders round the lake.

A Gadwall couple were dipping their beaks in the water and gathering up whatever Gadwalls can find in there.

I had to photograph them through bare stalks as that was where the ducks were inconveniently located near the edge of the lake.

I have to say that April was a very pretty time of the year in which to visit the park.  This is the central part of the lake and it is surrounded by trees.

On the other side of this part of the lake, in the distance, I could see some ducks sheltering underneath a large tree.  When I cropped the photo, I realised that they were Northern Shovellers - male on the left and female flapping her wings on the right.

A little further on, a Canada goose was chasing another Canada goose.  I don't know if they were a couple or just one being very unfriendly towards the other.  A little later they seemed to be travelling together in a much friendlier manner - so maybe they were a couple?

On the last leg of my walk, to my great joy, I saw a pair of Mandarin ducks.  This is the very colourful drake, his fancy feathers shimmering in the late afternoon sunshine.

This is the very beautiful and sweet-looking female Mandarin duck.

The couple were swimming quite close to the edge of the water, so I managed to get quite a few fairly close-up photographs for a change.  However, I had to stand/crouch quite still as, if I moved, they tended to swim away from me.  They make a very handsome couple.

I think this is a very sweet picture of Mr and Mrs Mandarin.

It was a very nice walk.  I loved seeing all the pretty Spring blossoms in the park mixed with some great wildlife.  My camera is very good at persuading me to go walking these days!

Red kites, Cayuga ducks, Wigeon and other wildlife in West Wales

This is my second post about my great week's holiday near Cardigan in West Wales at the end of March.  The weather was very good during the first part of the week so I managed to take lots of photographs.

On Monday, 27th March, we went to the Red Kite feeding station in the lovely location at Bwlch Nant Yr Arian.  There was a path round the beautiful lake that was set in a large valley.

Near the edge of the lake I came across a female Hooded Merganser.

In fact there were two female Hooded Mergansers.  They were being quite difficult as they kept swimming around the edge of the lake, but were mainly in places hidden by trees or tall grasses.  They popped out from time-to-time in spots were there was only a little vegetation.

We arrived in the area at about 2 p.m. and had time to wander round part of the lake before Kite feeding took place at 3 p.m.  The sky started to fill up with red kites, which were very difficult to photograph with just a small camera.  It was wonderful to be there as, eventually, there were hundreds of kites flying around over the lake.

At the designated time, the kite feeder entered the grassy area in front of the red kite hide and threw down handfuls of food.  I think they were pieces of chicken and, in a neat line (similar to aeroplanes landing and taking off), the red kites flew down to the ground, grabbed a piece of meat with their claws and flew back off over the lake.  It was an amazing sight to see! 

This was repeated several times during feeding time and was just amazing to watch.

Some black crows were also trying to join in at the dinner!

The birds seemed to take it in turns to come down and grab some food.  While others were flying in for dinner, others were still wheeling around in the sky.

 When I downloaded this photograph onto the computer and cropped it, I noticed that the red kite on the right-hand side has a recording device fastened to the front of each wing.

I was taking photos during the kite feeding from the back of this red kite hide.  The birds were being fed from the area in front of it.

Back at the self-catering house in Gwbert I had to suffer by watching great sunsets from the large windows in the living room nearly every evening.  It's a hard life, but someone's got to do it!

The next day we went to a farmer's market in St. Dogmaels, which was just across the estuary from where we were staying.  There were stalls with local food and crafts, but I was more interested in the pond on the opposite side of the road.  I had never seen such large ducks before and later learned that they were Cayuga ducks and that their eggs were being sold at the market.

I loved the different set of colours and, in fact, the dark green duck on the left looked more like a black duck when I was taking the photograph.

This huge speckled duck was taking a good look at me while I was crouched down trying to take it's photograph!

Living with the Cayuga ducks was this rather strange looking white duck with red blobs on it's face.  I believe it is a Muscovy duck.

It rained nearly all the next day, so we spent most of the time in the house and only went out for a drive in the afternoon in order to look round a church in a nearby village.  It was too wet to take any photographs.  It also rained on our last day but, at lunchtime, there was a break in the clouds and my sister and I walked down the road to Patch beach at the end of the Teifi estuary.  The tide was in and this is a view across the estuary.

We went back to the house before it started raining again.  Then, later that day, it stopped raining and we walked back down to Patch when it was low tide.  There we were treated to the sight of this white Little Egret promenading round the water's edge.

I quite like this profile of the egret with it's narrow white feathered plume head-dress blowing in the wind.  As you can see, the egret was some distance away from us.

Eventually the egret got fed up of being stalked by a couple of photographers and flew off along the estuary.  It can just be seen going on it's way in this photograph.

We then explored the other side of Patch, nearer to the sea, where (again some distance away) we came across a group of Wigeon feeding on the grass.  The light was bad and they rather blend into the background - but at least I managed to get a picture where they are more-or-less visible!

We walked along the path at the edge of the beach for a while.  Up on the cliffs, in the middle of the row of houses, was the wonderful house where we had spent our week in West Wales.

With many thanks to my sister and brother-in-law for a great week's birthday holiday in Wales.