Catching insects

A young Pied Wagtail was already catching midges for itself on the plastic buoys around the Lido swimming area. It paused for a preen.

There was an adult male on a post at the Vista, but it's not clear whether he's the father. There are at least two pairs on the lake.

There's only one pair of Grey Wagtails. One was on a fallen tree just south of Peter Pan, where there are abundant midges under the bushes. You can see one out of focus on the right side of the picture.

A Long-Tailed Tit near the Buck Hill shelter was busy picking up food for its young, and had a caterpillar and a couple of insects.

At the northwest corner of the bridge there was a lot of calling and rushing around in the bushes and I think the young ones are out of the nest, but the only picture I could get was of an adult.

The Robin near the Italian Garden with whom I had an encounter yesterday came out again, already carrying a spider but happy to take some pine nuts as well. 

A Great Tit waited on a rose in the Rose Garden.

A Song Thrush sang in the enclosure around the Lido terrace.

A Starling ate an apple that someone had spiked on the railings near the Buck Hill shelter, intending it for the Rose-Ringed Parakeets.

A parakeet ate early fruit in the red-leafed cherry tree near the bridge.

Two Reed Warblers were singing in the reeds near the Serpentine outflow, and one of them was partly visible for a moment.

The Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was in his usual lime tree, showing slightly better than usual.

The Great Crested Grebes at the island were at their nest on the chain. I haven't seen any sign of eggs yet. Also they both look male. Grebes have little or no idea what sex they are and sometimes make mistakes, but a pair that doesn't produce eggs will split up and the two will look for other mates.

The Mute Swans 4HDW and 4DTT, both widowed and now forming a new pair, were on the gravel strip on the Long Water. This is really not a good place to nest, as 4HDW knows perfectly well as his previous mate was killed by a fox there. But they are ignoring the safe nesting island near the Italian Garden.

The six Egyptian teenagers rested comfortably on the grass by Fisherman's Keep. Their mother, out of the picture, was keeping an eye on them as usual.

A pair of Gadwalls scraped algae off the concrete edge of the lake, visible in the clear water.

An allium patch in the Rose Garden had attracted a Honeybee and a pair of mating Harlequin ladybirds ...

... and a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee.

Tom was at Rainham Marshes and filmed a Spoonbill washing.

Wasp 1, Hornet 0

Pigeon Eater was in his usual place by the Dell restaurant, but there were few Feral Pigeons on the edge. He yawned hugely.

After a quick wash he flew up to the roof where he was joined by a Herring Gull, which surprisingly he tolerated. He contemplated a pigeon flying past, but he knows it's no good trying to catch pigeons in midair as they are quicker and more agile  than him.

I thought when I was photographing this that it couldn't be Pigeon Eater, just another Lesser Black-Backed Gull that looked like him. But I have magnified the pictures and they show the pattern of dots on the iris of his left eye, as unique as a fingerprint.

In the water below the nesting Coot was admiring its reflection in a snack packet made of shiny foil-backed plastic. Other nest ornaments included a purple allium flower and several coffee cup lids.

Two of the boat hire staff were jet washing tarpaulins on the platform. A Moorhen wandered between them, apparently liking the spray.

The recent warm weather has brought up algae on the Long Water, and a Cormorant was fishing at the edge of a patch under the Italian Garden. It didn't dive right under them as a Great Crested Grebe would, evidently because it's too big to pass between the strands coming up from the bottom of the lake.

As often happens, a party of Mute Swans has taken over the path by the Triangle. They attack passing dogs and sometimes make the path impassable. The smell is memorable. In the background you can see 4GIQ on her nesting basket and the Black Swan preening on the shore.

He stretched an incongruous white wing.

The Canada Geese led their three goslings across the middle of the Serpentine.

A pair of Egyptian Geese at the boat hire platform have three new goslings, probably already much reduced from a larger brood.

The six oldest Egyptian goslings assembled on the lawn on the other side of the Serpentine to graze under the watchful eye of their mother. She is an exceptional parent by Egyptian standards, and has reaped her reward by managing to keep them alive on the dangerous lake.

The young Pied Wagtail was on the buoys at the Lido.

A hundred yards down the shore its father was collecting midges for it, though I think it's now beginning to feed itself. It certainly flew out for a passing midge and returned to the buoys.

A Carrion Crow at the Lido was dunking a bit of meat, not for the first time and now I know why, because a man has been feeding them here. I have noticed that some of the crows are now ignoring the peanuts I give them, as they are getting something better.

A Robin came out on the railings near the Italian Garden. I didn't think I was on friendly terms with a Robin here, but it confidently perched on my hand and collected several pine nuts.

I still haven't got a picture of the young Robin at Mount Gate. There is a pair of Blue Tits here, one of which is smart and shiny and the other, seen here, quite tatty. 

A Great Tit looked out from pink hawthorn blossom in the Rose Garden.

A European Hornet drank sweet sap oozing from a maple tree on the east side of the Long Water. Surprisingly, this fearsome creature was knocked off the tree by a much smaller Common Wasp which wanted the place for itself.

Blackbirds

A Blackbird sang and was answered by another in a plane tree by the South Carriage Drive.

A female rummaged in fallen leaves in the scrubby patch east of the Lido.

A Song Thrush sang against another near the Italian Garden, but I couldn't record them because the leaf yard is being remade and is full of noisy earthmoving machinery.

The unattached Robin at Mount Gate posed against pink cherry blossom. It's beginning to look tatty. Maybe it does have a mate somewhere, but I've seen no evidence of that.

The pair of Robins with the young one were scurrying about under a large acanthus and I still haven't been able to get a picture.

A Blue Tit was furiously impatient at being photographed instead of fed, bouncing around and shouting. This added to the delay, but I finally got one hasty shot and fed it.

A Great Tit was waiting in a hawthorn near Temple Gate, but it stayed still and so got fed much more quickly.

A Carrion Crow perched on one of the new bombastic notices about 'Wonderful Woodlands'. The park management seems to be getting these written by an advertising agency, or possibly by Grok instructed to write puffery.

A pair of Lesser Black-Backed Gulls were moaning affectionately at each other at the Triangle. Their calls are lower pitched than those of Herring Gulls, and you can tell which is which without seeing them.

The Great Crested Grebes that were beginning to nest under the collapsed willow by the bridge were frightened away when a large branch fell off the tree. However, it was at the other side of the tree and their nest site is intact, and now they are coming back to it.

A pair of grebes harassed the Coot nesting under the Dell restaurant balcony, making it clear that they wanted to take over the nest. A grebe can always beat a Coot in the water, but usually it is the persistence of the Coot that allows it to win these disputes in the end.

The four Coot chicks from the nest under the Italian Garden are growing well. Two were out on the water with a parent ...

... and two preening in the nest.

The Black Swan gestured and hooted to his Mute mate 4GIQ through the gap they have turn in the fence of the nesting raft. Let's hope the thing doesn't collapse competely before they have finished with it.

Good news from Jenna: the widow of the boss swan, 4DTT, has paired up with the widower 4HDW of a pair that were beginning to nest of the gravel strip when the female was killed by a fox. They are now the only two swans on the Long Water, and are starting to nest. Unfortunately the site is not on the safe nesting island but in the reeds under the Italian Garden, exposed to the foxes. This place is very difficult to see clearly, but I'll do what I can about getting a picture.

The Canada Geese with three goslings are usually seen near the bridge. They must have to go right up to the Vista to find grass, and would have to wait for dusk before this dog-infested area was clear.

Buff-Tailed Bumblebees are now quite numerous and beginning to take over from the Hairy-Footed Flower Bees. A very small one was browsing on the green alkanet at Temple Gate ...

... and another was covered in pollen as it explored a wallflower in the Rose Garden.

Allium is a popular bee plant, and several Honeybees were feeding on it. Apparently this doesn't make the honey taste of onions.

I think this insect on the stonework in the Italian Garden is a Long-Legged Fly, Liancalus virens. It's bigger and leggier than the numerous similar-looking midges.

Robin success

The Robin pair at Mount Gate have at least one fledgling out of the nest, though I haven't yet got a picture of it as it kept lurking behind plants. There may have been a predator overhead, as its father was looking up nervously from the railings.

There was a Jay in a nearby tree, but the Robins seem calm about those and it wasn't looking that way.

A pair of Long-Tailed Tits bounced around in the bushes.

Most of the nest boxes in Kensington Gardens are 30 years old and haven't been cleaned or repaired for a very long time, but the tits are still using them. A Great Tit looked out of a box near the Henry Moore sculpture.

A ginger Feral Pigeon by the Italian Garden had an odd hooked beak, giving it a predatory look.

The Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was in his usual lime tree, and as usual hard to see through the leaves.

A Grey Heron stalked up and down the edge of the Dell restaurant terrace, hoping to be thrown a snack ...

... but it was Pigeon Eater who got the tortilla chips.

A Moorhen ate spilt soft ice cream.

The Great Crested Grebes' nest on the chain at the island is still intact, though an easterly wind makes a moored boat drift up against it -- fortunately not quite so far as to knock it over.

A grebe approached the Mute Swan 4GIQ's nesting basket to exchange hostile glances with the Coot. The swans have already brought down some of the flimsy side of the basket and it won't last long.

After weeks of shilly-shallying a pair of Mute Swans has finally settled down on the nest basket east of the Lido, which is even more broken though you can't see this through the reeds. The male was patrolling the water as the female sat on her eggs.

There is also a pair of swans nesting in the reeds under the Italian Garden. There is no good view of the site from any angle. One of the local Coot pair approached the male officiously and was sent packing.

The four Egyptian goslings at the Triangle are hanging on and beginning to grow.

A Mandarin drake rested on the rock in the Dell stream.

A fox was asleep in the long grass south of the Vista.

In the Rose Garden a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee revolved ecstatically in a pink rugosa rose. The dull thump from the Bluetooth speakers of the nearby rollerbladers suits the performance in a way, so I haven't edited it off.

A Harlequin Ladybird was in another rose looking for greenfly, though it had missed the one at the top left of the picture.