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.

Hot and bothered

On a hot day black birds get uncomfortably warm. A Carrion Crow was panting in a hawthorn.

Two Cormorants fidgeted on the fallen poplar in the Long Water.

The Black Swan was sitting inertly on the Serpentine shore. Usually he utters a melodious hoot and comes over for some sunflower seeds, but today he couldn't be bothered to move.

One of the six newest Coot chicks in the Italian Garden fountains preened its downy feathers. We've had five broods of Coots in the four pools but the older family in this pool has grown up and dispersed, so this lot have it to themselves.

A Coot in another pond objected to a Grey Heron.

The Coot nesting on the chain at the island ignored a Cormorant, a heron and a Herring Gull. It's not going to be shifted by anything.

A Mallard at the island has three ducklings, probably the remains of a larger brood as it's a very dangerous place. She had to run the gauntlet past some hungry Herring Gulls.

The dominant Mute Swan and his family have set up a beachhead on the Serpentine side of the bridge from where they can bully the local geese.

The songbirds were lurking in the shade of the bushes and there was little to see, but the Robin in the corkscrew hazel in the Flower Walk was scolding a Magpie.

Ahmet Amerikali found some better birds at Rainham Marshes: a Cetti's Warbler ...

... a Reed Warbler ...

... a young Bearded Tit ...

... and a Little Grebe.

If it was a poor day for small birds it was a good one for insects. There are now a lot of Emperor dragonflies on both lakes. This one was hunting at the Italian Garden ...

... and another flew past Peter Pan.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee browsed on a cosmos flower.

The urns in the Italian Garden have been planted with agave and aloe plants, conveniently drought resistant and not in need of watering. Two of the aloes, possibly Hesperaloe parviflora, have put out odd-looking spikes of red flower buds.

Run and Hyde ...

... That's the Epstein sculpture of Pan causing panic beside the South Carriage Drive. The hut is something to do with the summer music festival which ends on Sunday, thank goodness.

An unusual bee

The Little owlet at the Serpentine Gallery is still hard to spot, and it took two visits to see it. It's getting calmer about being photographed, and looked curiously down from the chestnut branch at the antics below.

Another family of Blackcaps was dashing around in an elder tree at the southwest corner of the bridge. They were very hard to see here, but I got some sort of picture.

A Reed Warbler perched on a bramble in the scrub to the east of the Lido swimming area.

A Feral Pigeon was recklessly sunbathing in the middle of the busy path by the boat hire platform.

The Grey Heron in the new nest at the east end of the island gazed heavenward as it was persecuted by the chicks.

A pair of Great Crested Grebes displayed on the Serpentine. This is not the pair whose nest was destroyed. Let's hope they can find a reasonable nest site. There are several places on the island behind the wire baskets.

The Coots were building up their new nest on the chain at the bridge. This nest is just as exposed as the ill-fated grebes' nest, but Coots are far better builders than grebes and these nests tend to last. However, any chicks will be at great risk from Herring Gulls perching on the posts.

There's already at least one egg.

A rapid exit of Canada Geese from the Long Water showed that the ferocious Mute Swan was ejecting them. This time he and his family came out under the bridge and herded the intruders on to the shore at the Triangle.

The Tufted Duck was at the swans' nesting island. She still has all her eleven ducklings.

The Lesser Emperor dragonfly was hunting up and down the bridge, and I got a picture of it at the second pass on the south side. There was also at least one Emperor and the usual crowd of Black-Tailed Skimmers, all chasing each other.

A Willow Emerald damselfly perched on a twig at the northwest corner of the bridge.

There was a Seven-Spot Ladybird in the Rose Garden. It's always pleasing to find a native ladybird instead of the numerous Harlequins.

Honeybees browsed busily on a patch of cranesbill in the Flower Walk.

The usual bees were also to be seen in the Rose Garden,  a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee in a dahlia ...

... a Common Carder on a white clover flower on the lawn ...

... and a small bee of uncertain species on a coreopsis. Could it be a Sweat Bee of the genus Lasioglossum?

But these paled into insignificance beside a Large Scabious Mining Bee, Andrena hattorfiana, photographed by Benny Hawksbee on the football fields where the Crystal Palace used to stand. It was spotted by his four-year-old son Dylan, who shows a precocious talent for entomology.

This is only the second time one has been seen in Hyde Park. It feeds only on Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis, and a few closely related species.