The oldest Great Crested Grebe chick on the Long Water is starting to look for its own food, and dives frequently. It needs to grow up quickly, as its parents are nesting again.

The one near the bridge is at a much earlier stage, but now swimming around freely.

Good news from the island (but a terrible picture). The grebe pair nesting nesting behind the basket are all right, and the grebe that was killed was not nesting. The other pair on the island are also unharmed, though the nest is now invisible behind growing plants.

The Coot at the bridge and its single chick rested in their leafy nest.

The Mallard at the Vista has hung on to her two ducklings, and was looking pleased with herself.

The Greylags with ten goslings were alarmed by the approach of a dog and started moving to the water.

A lesser Black-Backed Gull ate the remains of a pigeon near the Triangle car park. This area is now the hunting ground of two pigeon killers: a different Lesser Black-Back with pale legs, and a Herring Gull.

Meanwhile the original pigeon killer had been at work in his usual place near the Dell restaurant. He had taken the pigeon into the water because a Carrion Crow was bothering him.

A Grey Heron stalked through the grass on Buck Hill, clearly hunting something. It might have been mice, of which there are plenty in the long grass ...

... but it might have been Peacock butterfly caterpillars, of which a Magpie was catching quite a lot in the same place.

On the other side of the path there are sounds of young Robins begging -- quite a late brood as others have been out for weeks elsewhere. I couldn't see anything, but one of the parents flew out and landed on a felled tree trunk, one of its usual perches.

This Wren is often seen near the leaf yard protesting at the numerous Carrion Crows.

A Goldfinch sang from a television aerial in Rutland Street.

There is quite a colony of them here around the 'Hole in the Wall', which is the only passage between the west and east parts of the triangular area of streets where Knightsbridge converges on the Brompton Road. Originally there was a solid barrier of houses and walls between two adjacent estates, and residents who wanted to get from one end to the other had to make a long detour via one of the main roads. A fortuitous German bomb during the Blitz knocked down the wall, and when it was repaired after the war the residents asked for a doorway to be put in to save them the long walk. This plaque records the event. I wonder which minor celebrity was rung up and asked to unveil a notice about a hole.

I can't resist putting up another picture of a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee on the deep crimson French Rose near the Diana fountain.

A Honeybee worked over the lavender in the Rose Garden ...

... where there was also this spectacular lily. There is some animal life in this picture, as a small caterpillar was walking along a bud.