A Blue Tit emerged from a nest hole in a tree trunk, holding some detritus it was clearing out. It's not the droppings of the young, as these emerge in neat white packages which the parent bird takes some distance away to avoid revealing the location of the nest.

She preened on a twig -- this probably is a female, looking very tatty after breeding and nesting, with a lot of missing head feathers. She won't recover her looks till the autumn moult.

A Blackcap sang cheerfully in a holly tree beside the Long Water, probably the same bird as the one I photographed yesterday.

Chiffchaffs rush around madly in trees, and are not at all easy to film. This one was only singing sporadically, so it's not much of a video, but the best I could get.

A Wren was also singing in a reed bed.

There was another Wren in a flower bed in the Rose Garden ...

... along with a Dunnock, which skulked under plants and wouldn't come out for a clear photograph. This is a male, I think, judging by the large area of grey on his head.

A Pied Wagtail beside the Serpentine stared suspiciously at the camera.

The Little Owl near the Henry Moore sculpture was also in a nervous mood and crouched low down in her hole.

A pair of Carrion Crows gazed lovingly at each other.

The young Grey Herons were still in the nest and not doing much ...

... but there were events on the other side of the island, where the clattering sound of young herons showed that another brood has hatched. A ride kindly provided by Bluebird Boats gave a closer view, but the height of the nest makes it impossible to see how many young birds are in it.

There is also a new nest on the southeast corner of the island, quite low down on top of a hawthorn bush. But the bird in it is still grey-headed, and only a year old. Can Grey Herons breed at such a young age?

Unexpectedly, it is possible to see the Great Crested Grebes' nest on the east side of the Long Water from the path above it through a gap in the undergrowth.

The nesting Mute Swan beside the boat house was obsessively picking up and rearranging twigs. It doesn't make much difference here, since the swan is nesting on a hard surface with twigs that she and her mate have collected, but when they nest in vegetation they can rip up and wreck a large area of plants.

A swaggering Mandarin drake impressed his mate by routing a Gadwall and a Mallard, but he was then chased off himself by an even more aggressive Coot.

A female Gadwall preened her beautifully marked feathers.