Whether in flocks, where birds move as one like a murmuration of starlings, or flying solo on a particular mission, the flight of birds has been an inspiration to engineers and artists alike, as well as giving simple pleasure to those observing them.
Wings outstretched, the twists, turns and seemingly effortless gliding of birds in flight, evoke a feeling of longing. A glimpse of imagined freedom in a dreamlike world…
These sharp-eyed, often noisy black-headed gulls, winter visitors to Lambeth Reach, bring life and movement to the river side. The London Wildlife Trust say that around 140,000 pairs breed in the British Isles and their numbers swell to about 2.2 million birds in the winter.
These striking birds are of an ancient lineage stretching back to the time of the dinosaurs and, as you look at them with their fierce beaks, powerful claws, and their blue eyes, the link to a pre-human past opens up.
You can discover the history of the ‘spectacled’ cormorant, the world’s largest ever cormorant, extinct for 200 years, ancestor to the cormorants we see today, via this link to the: Natural History Museum.
Parakeets, as many of you know, have spread around the country. However, recently they are less evident in Victoria Tower Gardens, which might perhaps have something to do with the presence of peregrine falcons nesting, as they have been, in the Victoria Tower.
Young gulls seem to play, picking up small objects, then dropping them into the water, occasionally catching them again as they fall. Eventually, copying mature gulls, they learn to pick up shells for food, letting them drop onto hard surfaces to crack them open. Crows tend to bring the shells they find on the foreshore back up to the riverside path in Victoria Tower Gardens where they’re easier to open.
If you would like some respite from the rather gloomy news and weather at the moment, here are some other bird related articles on my site to take you, for a short time, to another place.
Wings Across Water
https://thetidalthames.com/2025/10/26/wings-across-water-an-interlude/
The Way Birds look at you
https://thetidalthames.com/2023/11/26/the-way-birds-look-at-you/
With the Birds
https://thetidalthames.com/2022/02/20/with-the-birds/
Birds on the Wall
https://thetidalthames.com/2021/11/14/birds-on-the-wall/
There are also some good accounts to follow on social media, particularly on Bluesky:
Birds of the World: @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social
Rob Crank Photography: @robcrank68.bsky.social
Every Heron: @everyheron.bsky.social
Ian Young: @iangrebe.bsky.social
Images mostly taken along Lambeth Reach from Victoria Tower Gardens, gulls featuring prominently…
© Patricia Stoughton