The female Tawny Owl was sunning herself on the hornbeam tree, watching us with one eye on the shaded side of her face while she closed the other to avoid being dazzled.

The owlets were not near, and were silent at the time, so we couldn't find them. Very likely they were in the small trees 50 yards away where we saw them yesterday, and their mother had retreated to a distance so she could have a moment's peace.

The male Little Owl was in his usual place on the chestnut tree, in the shade of the leaves.

A Blackcap was singing in a dead bush in the Flower Walk.

Usually they are next to invisible among the leaves, and they also hate being stared at, so it was an unusually clear view of him -- though from too far away, as usual.

There is a family of Wrens in an isolated hawthorn tree near the Queen's Temple, and you can often hear the male singing -- in fact you can hear this tiny bird's very loud song from a hundred yards away. Today the sun had brought him out on a bare twig, with his beak wide open and singing fit to bust.

The Mute Swan family on the Long Water passed close to the Coots' nest at Peter Pan, causing the usual standoff.

These Coots, which lost their first brood, have industriously started again in the same place. A pity that it's a rotten place exposed to gulls -- they would have done much better to move to a bush on the side of the lake.

A new pair of Great Crested Grebes has taken over the territory by the bridge, next to the wire basket that is full of fish.

They were staying under the arch, away from the mad rumpus caused by the triathlon on the Serpentine.