Little Owls in the leaves

The Little Owls at the Round Pond were perched side by side again, but today deep inside their lime tree and hard to see.

A Blackcap sang in the red-leafed cherry tree at the northwest corner of the bridge.

Ahmet Amerikali took a good picture of the male Reed Warbler in the reed bed east of the Lido, and reports that he now has a mate.

I got a video of the same bird singing very quietly. They are the only pair in the small patch of reeds, so he has no need to sing loudly, unlike the rivals in the larger Diana fountain reed bed.

The Blue Tits in the Rose Garden are unstoppably demanding, much more so than the usually dominant Great Tits. This is one of a pair based in trees at the north side of the garden, where they may be nesting.

There are at least two Robin nests in the Rose Garden, and Ahmet photographed one of them carrying insects ...

... and a Long-Tailed Tit also feeding young. These could be heard calling in the nest.

I found another carrying a couple of caterpillars under the bridge parapet.

A Starling perched on an umbrella at the Lido restaurant.

The Pied Wagtail was back on the posts at Peter Pan.

A team from the BTO were making a documentary about the Rose-Ringed Parakeets. I showed them the place by the Long Water where people feed them and they got some good footage of these pretty but pestilential creatures. A pair were sharing an apple on the railings -- they must have been mates because otherwise they'd have been fighting.

A Grey Heron was fishing from a fallen Lombardy poplar at the Vista.

The male Mute Swan at the island was guarding the nest, which is hidden in the bushes. The pair at the boathouse shuffled twigs around restlessly. The female at the Lido restuarant terrace turned over her seven eggs to keep them evenly warmed.

An Egyptian Goose preened its big complicated wings and flapped to settle the feathers.

There were three Mandarin drakes at the island, uneasy rivals and occasionally chasing each other away. Only one has a mate, who is nesting in a tree in Kensington Gardens.

A pair of Pochards dived at the Lido jetty.

A patch of comfrey in the Dell attracted a female Hairy-Footed Flower Bee ...

... and a male.

Little Owls in love

The Little Owl pair at the Round Pond were side by side in their lime tree, calling affectionately and preening each other.

Now that the leaves are fully out on most of the trees it's getting harder to photograph small songbirds, and mostly you just hear them.  A couple of Robins were in sight, one in the bushes by Peter Pan ...

... and the other on the pergola in the Rose Garden.

An unsuccessful attempt to get a picture of a Blue Tit in the pink-flowered hawthorn in the Rose Garden accidentally captured a Dark-Edged Bee Fly feeding in the blossom.

A Wood Pigeon was eating the flowers on a hawthorn beside the Long Water.

A Starling ate an apple that someone had put out for the Rose-Ringed Parakeets. In fact the parakeets don't much like Granny Smith apples and greatly prefer red varieties, but Starlings aren't fussy.

A Pied Wagtail used the jetty at the Lido as a hunting station.

A Cormorant on a branch of the big fallen poplar in the Long Water idly played with a twig. It wasn't displaying to another Cormorant, it was just amusing itself.

One of the young Grey Herons preened farther up in the tree. This looks like one of the three from the second nest, but it's getting hard to tell the difference in the ages of the first two broods. The third set haven't come down from their tree yet, though they're now climbing all over it.

The Great Crested Grebe pair at the east end of the island are guarding their nest site in a bush, and were displaying under the rowing boats moored in front of it. They have sensibly not started nesting yet: the longer they wait, the more small fish there will be to feed to the chicks.

The Coot nesting on a chain nearby was snapping in the air. There are so many midges that it can catch them from a sitting position as they go by.

It was all aboard at the nest in the Italian Garden. The eight chicks are doing well. It's the best nest site in the park, sheltered by the tall iris leaves in a place seldom visited by Herring Gulls.

Things are sadly different on the Serpentine, which is thronged with gulls standing on the moored boats. The pair at the boathouse are down to their last gosling ...

... and there are only three left at the boat hire platform, though here their parents had the sense to keep them in the shelter of the platform.

The Mallard ducklings were here too. I couldn't see how many have survived as they were popping in and out of the shadows. Two of them are dark and if they were to survive (a very big if) they would probably grow into the dark brown adults of which we have several on the lake.

The Gadwall drake and Mallard female were cruising together in the Italian Garden, with the rejected Mallard drake hanging around sadly behind them.

The lone Mandarin drake trotted through the algae on the edge of the Serpentine. I haven't seen any other Mandarins for a few days now, but it does seem that the female is nesting beside the Long Water.

The Mute Swans nesting on the bank at the Lido had come down from their nest and were out on the water side by side, mirroring each other's actions in their courtship display.

Mallard ducklings

A Mallard has eleven new ducklings near the bridge. If she can stay close to the bridge some of them have a chance of survival, as has happened before. But the big gulls are already watching.

A pair of Egyptian Geese nesting in a tree on Buck Hill have produced seven goslings, which their mother was leading around in the grass. She will take them down to the Long Water soon, where there is much better cover than on the open Serpentine, so again some of them have a reasonable chance.

The male Egyptian at the Henry Moore sculpture was alone yet again. Can his poor mate really be trying to nest for the fouth time this year? A Jackdaw stared at him as he reclined on top of the sculpture.

The pair of Canada Geese that used to nest on the raft in the Long Water have nowhere to go now, and are wandering around restlessly. They were coming down off Buck Hill into the Italian Garden.

The Gadwall drake and female Mallard were together in a fountain pool, with the male Mallard on the other side. He has been keeping at a safe distance since the Gadwall beat him up.

A Coot was ripping off iris leaves for the nest. Coots also drag up the iris corms and scatter them over the pools. It's remarkable that any of the plants survive their mania for destruction.

A Coot chick wandered around on the Mute Swans' nesting island. The swans never seem to bother them. Someone suggested to me that the swans tolerate Coots nesting on their island because these provide a useful warning of danger, but I wonder whether a swan is capable of thinking of that.

Now both of the swans east at the Lido are lying obstinately on the path, with a safe nesting place just out of the left side of the picture completely ignored. The single half-grown Egyptian gosling is in the background.

Two of the three young Grey Herons from the third nest were climbing around in the top of their tree. The heron at the bottom is also young, but from an earlier brood.

The heron at the bridge pointedly ignored a Carrion Crow perching on its favourite handrail.  This was sensible, as if it had annoyed the crow it would have been mercilessly persecuted. Crows love tormenting herons.

The Little Owl at the Round Pond was in her usual lime tree.

On the hill below the pond a Starling was collecting insects for its nestlings.

Only one of the Robins at Mount Gate was out, but we know now that they have chicks and look forward to seeing them.

In the Rose Garden the Blue Tit with the tatty head feathers was so insistent that it was impossible to photograph, flying around and landing on the camera in its eagerness to be fed. So here is its mate, also impatient but prepared to perch on a stem for a couple of seconds.

A Great Tit waited in the pink-flowered hawthorn tree.

A pair of Long-Tailed Tits were hunting on a winged elm tree by the Steiner bench.

Buttercups have come out beside the Long Water.

The enormous old ash tree on the corner of the Dell makes humans look as puny as ants.

Robins at work

Both the Robins at Mount Gate perched on the railings with insects for their nestlings.

A Long-Tailed Tit was also busy beside the Long Water ...

... and Ahmet Amerikali found another by the leaf yard.

One of the Blue Tits in the Rose Garden chattered impatiently in the hawthorn blossom because it wanted a pine nut immediately instead of being photographed.

A small bird was whizzing in and out of the bushes north of Peter Pan, catching insects over the water. I managed to snatch a shot when it paused on a visible twig for a moment, and it turned out to be a female Blackcap.

A Pied Wagtail sang on a post at Peter Pan which it was using as a hunting station for catching midges.

Quite a few Blackbirds can be heard and seen at the moment, including the one in the Rose Garden which I've filmed singing several times ...

... one in the Flower Walk which I've also filmed ...

... and one at Mount Gate.

Ahmet got a fine shot of a Reed Warbler at the east end of the Lido, where you can see sideways into the reed bed.

The female Little Owl at the Round Pond was calling, but it was hard to get a sight of her in the lime tree.

Pigeon Eater, not seen for several days, was back on his station by the Dell restaurant. He wasn't with his mate, who may be nesting on the restaurant roof.

A pair of Lesser Black-Backed Gulls is almost permanently on the Long Water, either on the posts where the raft was moored, or at Peter Pan.

The Grey Heron who hangs around at the bridge landed on the handrail, scattering Feral Pigeons.

A Coot fussed over its three chicks in a nest among the reeds under the parapet of the Italian Garden.

Every year Coots build nests on the long line of plastic buoys that surround the swimming area at the Lido. No nest has ever succeeded here, but that doesn't stop the Coots from trying again and again.

The Egyptian Geese near the Triangle took their surviving two goslings over the Serpentine Road and the horse ride to graze.

A male Hairy-Footed Flower Bee approached an ajuga flower to insert its enormously long proboscis. They ignore the big showy blooms in the border and prefer these modest little mauve flowers, although they are now withering.