... and at least one female can be seen flying frequently into the reeds with insects for the nestlings. However, she rushes in so quickly in unpredictable places that I couldn't get a decent picture of her, and this one will have to do.
The Black-Headed Gulls are beginning to come back to the Long Water from their breeding grounds.
'Black-Headed' is a curiously inaccurate name, since their heads are obviously brown.
The Little Owl was in his usual chestnut tree, staring irritably up at a pigeon that was sitting on his branch.
I don't knew whether a Little Owl would attack a pigeon, which is slightly larger. But the even smaller Saw-Whet Owl of North America is known to hunt and kill pigeons. Anyway, the pigeon felt uncomfortable and left, and the owl settled down and went to sleep shortly after I took this picture.
The Mandarin family were at the Vista. The young ones' wingtips are just beginning to cross over their tail like those of an adult.
Soon they will look exactly like adult females. If either of them is male it will explode into gaudy breeding plumage this winter.
The family of Mute Swans with five cygnets on the Serpentine are not tolerating the incursion of the other swan family into their territory. They staged a bit of counter-insurgency on to the Long Water until they were noticed by the big male who has made this lake his own. When they saw him cruising up with menacingly raised wings they retreated hastily under the bridge.
This Red Admiral butterfly was resting calmly in the middle of the path near Peter Pan.
It only moved when a runner blundered by and nearly trod on it.
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