Round Pond - not so round any more

[ffutures]

On Friday, after the buyer had collected Big Red I had to bank the money and go to the post office to send off the vehicle registration change, both of which took me along Queensway in the direction of Kensington Gardens. So naturally I took some bits of bread crust with me, intending to feed the ducks before getting a meal and doing some shopping on the far side of the park.

Things were complicated slightly by the construction work still under way at the pond, with a fence keeping people well away from the water. There were some ducks around, but feeding them was a battle because huge flocks of pigeons were instantly on the scene, so I had a devil of a job getting most of the bread to the ducks, to some thrushes that seemed to be interested, and to a very large raven that was obviously interested but didn't want me to get close. Between the pigeons and trying to juggle the bread and some shopping I didn't manage to get any useful photos of the birds themselves.

The pond itself is no longer round; it's more oblong with rounded corners, a much more formal design than it was when I was a kid, but apparently much more like its original appearance - see the full details here - 1mb PDF.

At the moment the water level is a couple of feet down, but I think that they've finished off the remodelling and are working on the surroundings before refilling it. I must have been there at lunch time or something because there was nobody working at all. Some pictures of the construction below, showing the curves and straight edges.








Because the water level is so low, and I think they must have cleared out the pond weed etc. to reline it, I saw virtually no birds on the water. The sole exception was a coot's nest to one side, which looks to be a perfectly good nest except that it will be under about 2ft of water when the pond is refilled! I'm wondering how the coots will handle that, or if refilling will be delayed until the babies can swim.






This is all part of a lot of ongoing reconstruction of e.g. the gardens at Kensington Palace, which is in the background in the first picture of the nest, and hopefully the park will look a lot nicer when it's all done.

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The Royal Parks people - they've still got some time left on their original estimate of how long it will take, and as you say I'd imagine that they'll delay filling it more until the chicks are swimming.