Most tourists come to London for the galleries and attractions but some of them come for the ducks. I see them taking as many photos of the birds as they do of Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.
The birds have been living here since the reign of James I who built a row of aviaries down the southern side (where Birdcage Cage walk is today – that’s how it got its name). He had a collection of zoo animals as well – antelopes, camels and crocodiles – and if you go back even further in time then it was a hunting ground for Henry VIII’s deer.
That’s how long our monarchs have been tinkering with this little piece of parkland – three hundred years. The Egyptians finished the Giza pyramids in sixty years – we spent five times that on just sixty acres of grass, passing the project on from the Tudors to George IV.
Photo: londondrum.comThe reason why they took such an interest in it was because they had three Royal palaces within five minutes walk – Whitehall Palace (long gone now), St James’s Palace and Buckingham Palace, plus a load of grand mansions like Clarence House (another Royal residence).
Birds of St. James’s Park – Pelicans, geese and ducks
Charles II transformed it into the back garden of high society by planting avenues of tall trees for people to promenade along, decorating the beds with even more birds – imagine all the squawking! – the Russian ambassador contributed a couple of pelicans and you can still their descendants today, sitting on a rock in the lake (next to that little fountain that shoots a water jet twenty-feet in the air).
They’re supposed to get fed every day at 2.30 PM which is always worth a watch.
Photo: londondrum.comThis place is a bird spotter’s paradise and they’ve installed some boards around the water listing all of the species you can see: geese, gulls, wigeons, pigeons, herons, kestrels and crows. Blue tits, great tits, shovelers and swans. Mallards, magpies, cormorants and coots. And that’s just the ones that rhyme.
Photo: londondrum.comIf you want to kill some time then you can do a lap of the lake in 25 minutes and have a sit-down in the cafe to finish. If you walk around the back of the cafe afterwards then you’ll see a set of wooden stairs that lead up to a viewing platform on the top.
View of Buckingham Palace from St. James’s Park lake
Photo: londondrum.comThere are two photo opportunities that are worth seeking out. If you walk out onto the middle of the bridge then you can enjoy a celebrated view of Buckingham Palace and the Queen Victoria Memorial. And if you spin around 180 degrees then you can see the fountain in front of Horse Guards Parade as well. I think this second view is even better because you get the Disney-like turrets of the Royal Horseguards hotel poking up behind.
Photo: londondrum.comDuck Island Cottage
The second place is a little building at the western end of the park (directly opposite Horse Guards) called Duck Island Cottage. It looks like one of those little witch’s huts that you find hidden in a thicket of overgrown weeds and wintry trees in the woods. It’s got a wild garden out the front with giant cabbages, big prickly thistles and giant spikes of purple plants and if you were allowed to peer inside the windows then I reckon you’d find them solid with cobwebs.
Photo: londondrum.comDeckchairs for hire at St. James’s Park
A word of warning about the deckchairs on the grass: tourists are forever sitting in them without realising that they cost money, and I always feel extremely very sorry for the poor warden who has to traipse around from chair to chair turfing them all out after patiently explaining why.
This is London, folks! You have to pay for everything over here, even the seats.
If you enjoy this then try Green Park (you can walk it 10 mins); Hyde Park (walk it in 28 mins or travel from St James’s Park to Marble Arch by underground); Kensington Gardens (travel from St James’s Park to Queensway via tube) and Regent’s Park (take a tube journey from St James’s Park to Regents Park)
