A bold Dunnock

The seven Coot chicks from the nest in the Italian Garden fountain came out of the irises to be fed. The fountains are the best nest site in the park, seldom visited by predators of any kind, and have a high survival rate.

However, the two nests on the lake below are in danger from the large pike that lurk at the north end of the Long Water, and few chicks get through. This nest is in a reed bed ...

... and these are the chicks from the nest on the Mute Swans' nesting island.

There are two new swans' nests, one by the landing stage at the Diana fountain ...

... and the other hidden in the reeds at the east end of the Serpentine.

The single Egyptian gosling from the south side of the lake was out on the water with its mother. It looked agitated when a Herring Gull passed, but it's too big to grab now.

One of these Manadarin drakes at the Vista has a mate who is nesting in a tree on the far side of the lake. The other is single. Usually when females are nesting the drakes get together peacefully, just to have company.

Pigeon Eater and his mate, resting side by side on the roof of the Dell restaurant, were annoyed when a young Herring Gull buzzed them.

A pair of Herring Gulls moaned softly to each other on the boat hire platform. There is a big nest site near the park on the flat roof of a building near Paddington Station.

The pair of Mistle Thrushes nesting north of the Flower Walk were rattling at a Magpie which had come near their nest. I don't know where the nest is, because the thrushes always do their scolding in a different place to mislead predators.

The male Blackbird who sings so well in the Rose Garden stared down from a branch.

A Blackcap sang in a tree by the bridge.

A Starling shone in the daisies by the Round Pond.

Despite the sunshine it was windy, especially at the exposed pond, and the Little Owls would have been sheltering in their new hole.

A Dunnock perched boldly on the railings at Mount Gate, and came down to pick up pine nuts from the path.

So did one of the Robins, collecting two. His mate wasn't visible and is probably on her nest now.

A Robin in the Rose Garden was eclipsed by gaudy tulips.

A Speckled Wood butterfly by the Serpentine Lodge had been fighting and had a torn wing ...

... but another on a patch of comfrey in the Rose Garden was in much worse shape. They seem to be unusually quarrelsome this year.

The Little Owls find a home

It rained in the morning, and when I first visited the Little Owls at the Round Pond they were nowhere to be seen. This was good, because it meant they weren't out in the rain with nowhere to go. I came back in the afternoon and the female owl called (I can almost believe she was trying to attract my attention) from a nearby lime tree where there is a hole which they have occasionally used in past years. There wasn't a good view, but it was a great relief to be sure that they weren't homeless. Let's hope the hole is suitable as a nest as well as a shelter.

The Green Woodpecker on Buck Hill has been calling constantly for days. It can be hard to find in the new leaves, but Theodore found himself unexpectedly close to the normally very shy bird and took this picture.

I found him near the top of the tree, pecking at a branch and laughing scornfully.

A Blackcap sang at the foot of the hill near the Steiner bench.

A Long-Tailed Tit paused in the variegated holly tree on the other side of the lake.

A Blue Tit examined a magnolia blossom in the Flower Walk.

A Coal Tit perched by hawthorn flower buds in the Rose Garden.

Joan Chatterley found a Robin carrying a spider to its nest near the Speke obelisk.

Pigeon Eater and his mate were displaying again. It looks as if they are going to nest, and I suspect that the site is the Dell restaurant roof, but there's no way of seeing this from the ground.

A Coot has built a nest under the restaurant balcony. This place has been used in past years. It's in two feet of water and the Coots have amassed a substantial heap of waterlogged branches to support the nest, some of these so large that you would have thought it impossible for a Coot to move them.

A Great Crested Grebe was fishing around the wire baskets under the bridge. These are filled with twigs and serve as a fish hatchery. There should already be some tiny young fish here.

Mute Swans can't stop tearing down the plants around their nests, although it would be an advantage to have some cover. When the pair first occupied the nesting island it was covered with waist-high weeds. On the edge of the island a Coot was looking after some new chicks. The aggressive swans consider Coots not worth bothering with, and leave them alone.

The Egyptian Geese which had sixteen goslings on the Serpentine are now down to their last two. One had rashly wandered along the edge of the lake and was hurrying back to its mother.

The spirit of adventure is fatal for goslings and ducklings. The Egyptian gosling on the other side of the lake has survived because it's a meek little conformist that stays with its mother.

The Mandarin drake by the Henry Moore sculpture was alone on the grass. It looks as if his mate is now nesting in a tree hole.

The Gadwall–Mallard trio rested on the kerb of a pool in the Italian Garden.

Blue bugleweed in the Rose Garden attracted a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee ...

... and a male Hairy-Footed Flower Bee.

Joan found a spectacular Orange Tip butterfly in the Flower Walk.

Singing and scolding

A Wren sang on a dead branch in the Flower Walk. With his powerful voice he could be easily heard over the noisy humans below. It's almost impossible to get a quiet moment to record, with people chattering and pulling noisy suitcases on wheels while jets go over to Heathrow and police cars pass with their sirens on.

Another Wren was in a bush below, maybe a mate of his. Wrens are polygamous, with the male lording it over a harem of females in separate nests.

I did slightly better with a Blackbird in the next tree alternately preening and singing a phrase. There was no rival within earshot, so he had no need to sing seriously.

Loud whirring near Peter Pan disclosed a pair of Song Thrushes protesting at several Jays that had got too close to their nest in the bushes.

There were more Jays near the Serpentine Gallery.

The Little Owl at the Round Pond looked down through horse chestnut leaves.

Pigeon Eater and his mate, on their territory near the Dell restaurant, had a small display together, nodding upwards as a sign of affection.

The pair of Great Crested Grebes at the east end of the Serpentine were looking at the reed bed as if planning to nest on the edge. A pair of grebes did manage to build here successfully a few years ago, fixing a nest to the outside of the net where it somehow managed to escape being demolished by carelessly steered pedalos. The net only goes down to water level, but it has bever occurred to the grebes to dive under it and nest in the safety of the reeds behind. To be fair, this has never occurred to Coots either.

Coots nest in one of the small boathouses every year. Only one chick was vsisible, being fed in the debris at the edge of the lake, but there were probably more inside.

The Coot chicks from the nest south of Peter Pan were out under the bushes ...

... but the pair nesting on the post have lost their chicks to the gulls already, as they do every year.

There are two pairs in the Italian Garden, so confrontations are inevitable.

A pile of straw was put on the Serpentine shore for a pair of Mute Swans to make a comfortable nest in the reed bed east of the Lido, and a temporary fence put up to shield the place from dogs. But the original swans here, 4GIA and 4DTI, seem to have been ousted by another pair, 4FUE and 4FYY of which the first is the male. He hasn't grasped the idea that the straw is to go in the reeds, and was pushing it around as if he were planning to make a nest on this open spot -- which would not be a good idea, even with the fence in place.

A yellow rose in the Rose Garden attracted what I am pretty sure is an Orange-Tailed Mining Bee, Andrena haemorrhoa.

A Speckled Wood butterfly perched on a leaf by the Serpentine Lodge. It's badly tattered. They are very territorial and fight like fury.

The Wollemi Pine, Wollemia nobilis, in the Dell is now well established and putting out new leaves. A previous one here died. The genus was known only from roughgly similar fossils and thought to be long extinct, but in 1994 living trees were discovered in New South Wales. They were cloned, and the clones distributed to botanic gardens around the world. It has since been discovered that they can be grown from seed.

Another 'living fossil' is the Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, of which there are now two in the Dell and one across the path by the Serpentine outflow. Thought extinct since the Cretaceous, it was discovered in central China in 1941, so the trees in the west have had time to grow to a good height. Eventually they will be enormous: a fossil has been discovered with a trunk 26 ft (8 m) in diameter at the base.

Buzzard over Bayswater

A Pied Wagtail trotted through the daisies beside the Round Pond looking for insects.

The Little Owl was in her usual tree. It was sunny till early afternoon, when it started to drizzle and she would have needed to find shelter. There is a hole in a nearby lime tree that the owls have sometimes used, but I don't know whether it's suitable for nesting.

While I was wandering around under the tree trying to get a clear shot, a Buzzard drifted over and disappeared to the northeast.

The Coal Tit pair in the Rose Garden haven't been visible for a while, but one of them turned up today in a bush and called for service.

The Coal Tit at Mount Gate was also hungry on a colder day, and followed me to the Albert Memorial.

A Blue Tit posed in the forsythia bush.

A male Chaffinch near the Serpentine Gallery was carrying a few strands of nesting material. This is not the one that chases me all over Kensington Gardens, but it may be the younger male that sometimes accompanies the pair.

The Green Woodpecker on Buck Hill has been calling insistently for several days. It's hard to see now that the leaves are out, but Ahmet Amerikali got a good picture of it.

A small dead tree has fallen into the Long Water by the bridge. A Grey Heron took advantage of this new fishing station.

There are seven Coot chicks in the nest in the Italian Garden. They need feeding for part of their diet but are already finding things for themselves.

More chicks have appeared in a nest on the lake below. There was at least one more out of sight on the nest.

And there's a new nest under the bush at the edge of the Vista where the Moorhens like to climb, which is bad news for the Moorhens and they will have to find somewhere else to nest.

The eight Egyptian goslings on the Round Pond are now large enough to stroll past a Herring Gull without danger.

Inevitably the pair on the Serpentine have lost some. They had ten ...

... and there was a single one near the Dell restaurant which was responding to the calls of a female but looks like a stray from the other pair. Egyptians are vague about ownership of their offspring.

The male at the Albert Memorial was alone on the east lawn, so it looks as if his mate is nesting in a tree here. The goslings will have a serious trek to get to the Long Water.

The Mandarin pair were still by the Henry Moore sculpture. They seem likely to nest here, and there are several old trees where they should be able to find a hole. There's also an Egyptian nesting here.