In London's St James' Park today...

[loripo]

I decided I would go to see if the Mandarin ducks were about - didn't see any but there were lots of others, Barnacle geese, Greylag & Canada's, Bar headed and Red breasted geese, tufted and mallard duck (and a rather colourful hybrid) , Shelduck looking splendid and a couple I didn't recognise and couldnt see on the ID boards, so can anyone ID these for me?


A smal groups of what I think are Ross's geese...


And strolling along the grass to where some geese were being fed was a heron, only a few feet from the people walking along the path.

[Jason Green]

Hi Lori,

Yes, interesting to see these tame Herons! The birds for ID here I presume are all 'Collection' birds. No idea on the first stunner, but the second is a female and partially-leucistic Eider species IMO.

Take care,

Jason

[loripo]

I know that the pelicans and black swans are 'captives' - not sure of the others though. I hadn't seen shelduck there before and only one of the Ross' geese. I wondered of the heron was used to feeding when the pellies fed, fish presumably and that's what it was after. The first is beautiful. I'll look up eider - hadn't thought of those - there are some similar at Barnes from Iceland (in the captive pens).

[RoyW]

Your first image shows a male Ringed Teal (from South America), the second is an Eider, but looks like a 1st year male rather than a partially leucistic female. These will both be birds from the collection, but interesting wild ducks do turn up in collections from time to time (you have to know the collection well to pick them out though!).

[loripo]

Thanks for that. The Royalparks website doesn't list which birds are in the collection. And the notice boards don't indicate that either. I hadn't seen these before so I don't know where theyve been hiding. The lake was drained and cleaned early in the year and I'm happy to see so many back again.
(I've just googled Ringed Teal and I think mine is nicer than all the others!)

[aeshna5]

Always an interesting park to walk around. As has been said many of the birds are pinioned, but good numbers of wild duck- especially Mallard, Tufted Duck + Pochard. Also sometimes small numbers of wild Shoveler, Gadwall + certainly before the cull, Ruddy Ducks. There's also a lot of fully winged Red-crested Pochard that move around the London area.

[Adam Cheeseman]

The Ross' Goose looks more like a Snow Goose to me but is hard to tell from the angle of the shot. Either or, it is a pinioned bird i.e. had its wing clipped.
The Eider is an immature male bird.

Cheers,

Adam

[loripo]

There was a small group of the geese.


So are they 'residents' then?
I saw red crested pochards and Ruddy duck earlier in the year. I must see if I can get a list of the Collection birds.

[Adam Cheeseman]

They are Ross' Geese, and unless they fancy going for a walk they certainly won't be flying anywhere.

Cheers,

Adam

[aeshna5]

Originally Posted by loripo

There was a small group of the geese.


So are they 'residents' then?
I saw red crested pochards and Ruddy duck earlier in the year. I must see if I can get a list of the Collection birds.

If you look carefully at your photo of the Ross's Geese you'll see each bird only has one full set of black primary flight feathers. These have been pinioned to stop them escaping. By law all non-native wildfowl should be pinioned but a fair number aren't, so exotic birds do turn up from time to time, eg. an Emperor Goose currently on the Serpentine + a fair few of the Bar-headed Geese at Kew are fully winged.