Wood Pigeon in a bad mood

A Wood Pigeon at the Round Pond chased two others around for no apparent reason.

There are two Young Robins in one stretch of the Flower Walk, evidently siblings. This is the one we've seen several times before, just beginning to get its first red feathers ...

... and there was another, more advanced, lurking in a bush where I couldn't get an unobstructed picture.

The young Starlings scavenging at the Lido restaurant are beginning to get their spotted adult feathers.

A Carrion Crow on the next table was making the most of a small piece of cake.

The male Peregrine was on the tower. A tiny dot in the sky above turned out to be his mate circling high over the football fields.

A young Cormorant at the Serpentine island picked up a twig from an abandoned Coot nest and waved it around. Was this nesting behaviour kicking in early, or was it just playing? Cormorants do build nests in trees, though they also nest on the ground on rocky outcrops.

Another Cormorant jumped on to a post to dry its wings.

Canada Geese ejected from the Long Water by the furious Mute Swan retreated in good order.

The swans which tried to nest beside the boathouse still return to the spot to rest and preen. The railings protect them from dogs and children.

The Mallard family on the Round Pond were cruising briskly round the edge, threading their way through the swans.

The little Mandarin was amusing itself by pushing Feral Pigeons about.

This pair of Mandarins at the Vista is nothing to do with the family from the pond. Both are moulting and flightless at the moment. The drake, on the left here, is completely in eclipse but you can spot him from the pink tinge to his bill.

Incidentally, the little Mandarin is getting a hint of pink at the base of its bill, and it may be male. But it's much too early to be sure.

The usual fox was out on the lawn under the Henry Moore sculpture.

It was quite windy and few insects were visible. Red Admiral butterflies are strong flyers and there were a couple beside the Long Water ...

... and in the relative shelter of the Rose Garden a few hardy Buff-Tailed Bumblebees were feeding on the lamb's ears ...

... and catmint.

An interesting picture taken by Jabir Belmehdi near the Speke obelisk: a wasp dismantling a dead Buff-Tailed Bumblebee to provide food for the grubs in its nest. At first I thought it might be a Beewolf, but in fact it seems to be an ordinary Common Wasp and probably the bee was already dead from other causes.

Young crows learning their trade

The young Carrion Crows have now learnt to shell peanuts instead of expecting their parents to do it for them. They were mercifully silent, and the parents looked relieved.

This is the mate of the tattered Coal Tit in the Flower Walk, also looking a bit worn by bringing up a brood. Both of them will take pine nuts from my hand.

So will this Robin, which is presumably a parent of the young one I've photographed several times since both appear in the same section of the Flower Walk.

This Robin near the Henry Moore sculpture, also a parent, is shyer but will accept pine nuts thrown on the ground.

Pigeon Eater had already had his lunch, but thought he could fit in a little more and returned to his meal.

The Great Crested Grebe pair at the island have been diving under the wire baskets at the east end and disappearing, evidently coming up behind them. There is a bush here where it's possible to nest, and there is some hope that they may be breeding again in a safer place.

An Egyptian Goose enjoyed a splashy wash near the Lido.

It was cooler and there was a bit of wind, and the Black Swan had recovered from his lassitude. He charged over for some sunflower seeds.

The Tufted Duck from the Long Water has managed to keep seven of her original eleven ducklings despite attacks by Herring Gulls. She had brought them on to the Serpentine, where they were all diving busily.

On the other side of the lake the Mallard is now down to two ducklings. She was sheltering them from the wind, and from the Herring Gulls circling overhead.

At the Round Pond the Mandarin duckling is becoming quite a fierce little creature. It was scattering Feral Pigeons left and right, and Jon saw it attacking a Coot.

Three Egyptian teenagers rested on the gravel strip.

The fox at the Henry Moore sculpture was out on the lawn again. It didn't like me pointing a camera at it, and gave me a disapproving look before sauntering into the undergrowth.

Common Wasps were flying in and out of an underground nest next to the Albert Memorial steps. They don't dig these holes themselves, but use existing holes such as those made by rodents. (There are species of solitary digger wasp that do excavate their own nest holes.)

No exotic bees seen today, just a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee climbing into an acanthus flower in the Dell ...

... and a Common Carder on the catmint patch in the Rose Garden.

The red and yellow plum trees at the Triangle are laden with fruit, which is edible and good if you can get to it, but people are picking it thoroughly and you have to be lucky to find one they have missed.

The Mandarin mother remembers

The smallest Mandarin duckling on the Round Pond has not been deserted by its mother. Although she has taken the larger two down on to the Long Water, she flew up to visit it this morning and was seen by Jon and Virginia.

It's going to be at least a couple more weeks before it can fly. I wonder how its tail feathers got into that state -- very likely an unsuccessful grab by a Herring Gull. Anyway, it's too large to grab now, and growing well at last.

Another endangered youngster, the single Mute cygnet at the east end of the Serpentine.

So far this year the killer swan has only come a short way on to the Serpentine, but he's made it clear that he wants to own the whole lake. This has happened twice in the past with highly dominant swan pairs, all the other swans being banished to the Round Pond. But there were fewer swans then and it may not happen again.

The Black Swan gazed at a couple of Moorhens. I think a Mute Swan would have pecked them, but he is a more easygoing bird.

The Coot nesting at the north end of the bridge has laid yet more eggs, the third clutch this year -- but sadly all in vain as any chicks are quickly eaten by gulls.

The pair at the other end of the bridge have not learnt from their example, and construction is going ahead briskly.

The three newest Grey Heron chicks are now large and restless and developing their wings. When they fledge they will bring the total this year to 17 from 6 nests, a record for the park.

There's another big gull with unusual dark eyes, a Herring Gull seen on a buoy in the Round Pond. It has been suggested that these have survived bird flu, but no one really knows.

The female Blackbird of the pair in the Rose Garden was annoyed by the noise going on under her tree. It's the last day of the summer concerts, and one of the groups had come out of the enclosure to have an unplugged singalong with the crowd. The song was 'Strange Magic', first performed by the ELO in 1975. I don't think anyone would want to sing along to anything written this century.

The male Blackbird in the Flower Walk was out foraging for his youngster again. I still haven't seen it, but unmistakable begging sounds are coming out of the bushes.

The young Robin was poking around nearby.

The young Carrion Crows are now quite big enough to do their own hunting and scavenging, but that doesn't stop them from constantly nagging their parents, even when these take refuge in trees to get away from them.

Ahmet Amerikali got a good picture of a young Blackcap at the southwest corner of the bridge.

In the bushes below a mating pair of Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonflies got a shock when an ant walked over one of their feet.

Several Emperors were flying at the Italian Garden.

Duncan Campbell's investigation of the patch of Field Thistles yesterday also turned up a Green-Veined White butterfly.

I found a tattered Gatekeeper on a burdock by the Vista. The small insect on the stem below is probably a Mirid Bug, Plagiognathus arbustorum.

Two gaudy varieties of Indian Blanket flower in the Rose Garden attracted a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee ...

... and a Honeybee.

Small birds creep out of the bushes

It was a bit cooler today and the small birds, though preferring the shade, were venturing out in the bushes in the Flower Walk. They included a young Robin ...

... a young Great Tit ...

... and a Coal Tit looking extremely tattered from nesting and feeding young. But it was in good spirits and came to my hand for a pine nut, and it will get new feathers in the autumn.

There was the welcome sound of a young Blackbird begging under a bush. It stayed out of sight, but I did see the father looking for insects for it.

A young Blackcap preened in a holly tree beside the Long Water.

Ahmet Amerikali got a good shot of a Reed Warbler in a tree at the southwest corner of the bridge.

The dry weather has caused a lot of leaves to fall off the trees and the ground is looking almost autumnal. Three Jackdaws came out for peanuts at the Round Pond.

The little Mandarin duckling at the Round Pond is now alone. Its mother and the two larger ducklings, now able to fly, have deserted it and gone down to the Long Water. But the story is not all gloom, as several devoted people are bringing it mealworms and other good things to help it to grow, and it is growing noticeably and wing feathers are just beginning to emerge.

Here is one of the older ducklings at the Vista. Its flight feathers are not quite fully grown, but serviceable.

The Tufted Duck was here under the bushes with an unknown number of ducklings.

Yesterday Ahmet got a fine but horrifying shot of one being seized by a Lesser Black-Backed Gull, and reported that the number was down to eight from the original eleven.

The Mallard at the island had managed to evade the gulls for another day, and still had three.

The Black Swan was pulling up algae from the bottom of the Serpentine. Although he is smaller than a Mute Swan he has a prodigiously long neck and can reach down from some way offshore.

Another picture by Ahmet, of a Grey Heron catching a small fish under the Italian Garden. It's a Ruffe again, resembling a perch but without stripes.

I hadn't even heard of this fish until a few years ago, but now it seems to form the majority of catches on the lake.

A patch of globe thistles in the Rose Garden attracted a Honeybee, a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee, a Peacock butterfly and, for a moment at the end, a hoverfly, Eupeodes luniger.

The hoverfly has the cumbersome common name of Common Spotted Field Syrph, which I don't think anyone uses. Crescent Moon Hoverfly would be a neater name.

A Seven-Spot Ladybird climbed over a catmint flower.

Duncan Campbell was looking for insects in a patch of Field Thistle, Cirsium arvense, and made some interesting finds. This wasp with a ridiculously long ovipositor is a parasitic Carrot or Javelin Wasp, Gasteruption jaculator. The female injects eggs into the nests of solitary bees and wasps and the grubs feed on the grubs of its victims.

This is a European Beewolf, Philanthus triangulum, another persecutor of bees which it catches and takes to its nest to feed its grubs.

But he's far from certain about this, possibly a Blood Bee, a Sphecodes species ...

... and about this, which may be a Wilke's Mining Bee, Andrena wilkella.

A strange sight on Buck Hill, a man deploying a large foil kite. These things are used for windsurfing -- towing a surfboard, often with a hydrofoil under it. But what was he hoping to achieve in a meadow? He was wearing a helmet as if he expected to leap into the air. But the wind wasn't all that strong so, probably luckily, he stayed on the spot.