Alison JC Brown takes us on a vivid journey through Queen’s Park, where the thawing winter reveals a bustling world of birdsong, territorial dramas, and nesting waterfowl. From robins' melodies to the fierce devotion of coots, every corner of this Southside gem teems with life and wonder.

Words and photos by Alison JC Brown, Friends of Queen’s Park committee member for biodiversity recording

The icy start to the new year has thawed and, only three weeks into 2025 – with the days already getting noticeably longer – the bird activity in Queen’s Park has taken on an energetic vibrancy.

Territories are starting to be defined and marked. The park’s many robins are particularly vocal now, singing their little hearts out from the low-level branches in the later afternoon. A stroll through the park from 4pm is already a musical treat.

Similarly, the birds are returning to the two ponds of Queen’s Park. The thick ice over the festive period had driven many of the resident waterfowl away to locations where water was still free flowing. Now, they are all back, including a pair of mute swans who seem to very much like it here, and I hope will make the islands on the small wildlife pond their nesting site this year. Queen’s Park has not had cygnets since 2020 and it’s an absolute treat to watch these birds teaching their young to swim, feed, preen and fly.

The gregarious and bossy mallard ducks are already mating, the much shyer and tinier tufted ducks are quietly gathering in numbers before they pair off, and the rails – the collective species name for birds which include coots (black feathers, white beak and crest), and moorhens (brown-black feathers, red crest with red and yellow beak) – are already aggressively staking out their watery borders.

My daily walks in Queen’s Park during the pandemic made me much more aware of avian intelligence, and the rails fast became my personal favourites for their intelligence and sassiness.

Fiercely territorial, these birds are ready to have a full-on fight with any opponent that ventures into their territory; foes are pursued across the water at speed at the slightest opportunity with a cacophony of noise. They are the loudest birds on the pond by far. Yet, what intrigues me most about them is despite their aggression they are utterly devoted to their mates and to their teeny tiny young (that is, until said young become adult sized teenagers, at which point they are driven away from home).

I still spend time every day feeding the coots and moorhens in Queen’s Park and have been rewarded witnessing the soap opera of their daily lives; the joy when the adorable fluffy-bottomed, flamed-headed cootlings first hatch and the sadness when the young are predated upon by the gulls or crows – the distress of the parents is real.

But when they have nests, these feathered cousins are also pretty mean to each other. On the island of the small wildlife pond, a pair of moorhens have, for the last three years, nested in the tree above a coot nest; such close proximity is intolerable to both of them and usually the moorhens lose.

However last year, even the coots did not do well on the small pond, frequently fighting a hungry heron who stealthily lurked in the undergrowth of the pond vegetation. A young bird is a tasty morsel for a heron, but never underestimate a coot, for they put up a fierce fight; an unsuspecting young heron being pursued with a yelp is quite an astonishing spectacle.

It’s rather fabulous to witness that the most successful nesting site in Queen’s Park is actually a piece of public art; the kinetic stainless-steel sculpture installed into the big pond by Glasgow City Council in 2021. Three Right Angles Horizontal, by the American artist George Rickey has proven to be an absolute hit with the coots – it is the park territory they most fiercely battle over.

*The park’s most successful nesting site*

The sculpture’s value lies in a number of physical attributes. Firstly, it is installed on a raised cement base, so the coots do not have to build such deep structures for their nest. Secondly, the gently moving arms of the sculpture provide a level of protection for the young. Though the seagulls perch on the upper arms of the sculpture, it is far harder for them to reach the cootlings, and even when off the nest, the little cootlings know to not stray beyond those metal arms, or from the shadow those protective beams cast on the water below. With nesting season usually in March to September, it's rewarding to take a pair of binoculars and watch coot family life unfold at its central foot.

As the year goes on, the pond also hosts a variety of other water fowl: little grebe (who have a spectacular willowy call), goosanders (who usually arrive for the winter months) and there have been sightings of a variety of geese and other ducks, including a teal and a wood duck. And if you see a tiny bird furtively hopping around the edge of the pond wagging a long tail into a blur, it’s a gorgeous yellow wagtail.

In the Southside, we are blessed to have such a beautiful greenspace on our doorstep with a mix of terrain that provides a home to a wide range of wildlife. In addition to the ponds, Queen’s Park hosts formal Victorian landscaped avenues and terraces where blackbirds hop, magpies strut and the little finches, tits and robins watch the human passersby from the bushes, hopeful of tasty offerings being made.

Take a saunter through the upper-level woodland paths and you’ll hear, if not spot, woodpeckers, nuthatches, tree creepers, wrens and long tailed tits. The song thrushes sing their beautiful jazz soliloquies from their favourite branches. The park is also home to tawny owls and three kinds of bats.

A walk through the park is a wonderfully mindful way to top and tail a working day.

The Friends of Queen’s Park (FoQP) run a range of activities throughout the year, so do keep a look out on our website and social media channels to see the events and activities we have planned. FoQP has a gardening group (you can find them in the Scottish Poetry Rose Garden) and a biodiversity recording group (who organise walks and citizen science identification events) and both are ways you can get involved. We’d love to hear from you.