Seymour Birdies Diary: A Freezing Day at Verulamium Park

7th January 2026

After days of pour weather the forecast for today was sunny intervals albeit near freezing so off to Verulamium Park. The two lakes were mostly frozen over but the river was free of ice so off to see if I could find any Kingfishers.

As I was walking along the river keeping an eye out for the Yellow-browed Warbler, I came across a Goldcrest looking for insects in the ivy of an over-hanging tree. It proved very tricky to photograph as it was obscured for most of the time, and when it did break cover you had a few milli-seconds to get your shot.

Both males and females have a yellow central crown stripe, but the males also have an orange stripe which is normally hidden from view except when displaying. So if you see any orange feathers in the crown stripe it is a male, but otherwise inconclusive. When going through the photos I came across this last one which appears to show a glimpse of orange at the back end of the stripe.

Cropping the photo confirms the presence of orange feathers under the yellow and therefore the bird is a male.

Moving further along the river a juvenile Little Grebe was preening under some more over-hanging trees.

What's not to love about a Little Grebe?

Now on to the bridge by the boating lake with ducks and gulls standing on the ice, but no sign of the 2nd winter Mediterranean Gull. However this Pied Wagtail seemed to be a bit ambitious in trying to find food on the ice but did provide a few opportunities for some shots. The one thing about ice is that it does provide some almost perfect reflections.

So what about the Kingfishers? Well, this year there have been two Kingfishers in the park, a juvenile male at the boating lake where I am now, and an adult male at the other end of the river by the Fighting Cocks pub. During my last visit on the 2nd December the juvenile was performing most of the time and the adult bird was very elusive. However, today it was all change.

The juvenile had been seen earlier but flew off at 10.30am and had not been seen since. However, the adult was showing very well from the footpath although would disappear for half an hour at a time. Here are the results.