The Great Crested Grebes perform their dance

A Wren preened and sang on a branch in the Flower Walk.

There is at least one Coal Tit fledgling here. Neil took this pleasing picture of it being fed by its father. It looks considerably larger than its parent, but that must just be caused by the angle.

I think this is its mother. She is the one that will come to your hand.

A Blue Tit waited to be given a pine nut.

This Robin singing on a yew hedge is also nesting in the Flower Walk.

A pair of Magpies displayed in a treetop, with the female fluttering her wings like a young bird to encourage her mate to feed her.

A Peregrine circled over the Flower Walk. I thought it was too high to photograph but Neil persevered and got a respectable composite picture.

A Greenfinch sang its mild twittering song in a tree beside the Long Water. The much louder song at the beginning is from a Cetti's Warbler hidden in the brambles below.

The Grey Wagtail in the Dell was hunting midges on a rock at the foot of the main waterfall. It rocketed into the air to catch one.

A Grey Heron fishing on the dead willow near the Italian Garden looked down disapprovingly as a Cormorant dived in front of it, frightening away the fish it had been waiting patiently for.

A pair of Great Crested Grebes on the Serpentine performed their full courtship dance with bits of weed. Here is some of the long initial display, followed by the dance itself.

The single grebe chick on the Long Water had wandered away from its parents, and then realised it was getting hungry. It hurried back piping pathetically.

Eight of the original nine Coot chicks in the Italian Garden have survived so far. Their parents were feeding them in a patch of algae.

A Coot has built a nest in a crazy place on the boat platform, right under the eyes of the Herring Gulls that hang around there. A studded dog collar will not protect it.

A Moorhen wandered around the Mute Swan's nest beside the boathouse looking for insects. The swan left it in peace.

An Egyptian Goose at the Serpentine outflow kept a sleepy eye on her goslings as they basked in the mild sunshine.

The hole in the oak tree used by the Tawny Owl has had a family of squirrels in it for two days. I fear that the owl must have been driven off permanently. He will be very hard to find again now that the trees are in full leaf.

People sometimes tell me that they have seen a 'Red Squirrel' by the Henry Moore sculpture. In fact there are several Grey Squirrels here with ginger patches. This is not caused by Red Squirrel genes but by a failure of the black melanin pigment (eumelanin) in some of its fur, leaving only the ginger pigment (phaeomelanin). The same thing happens in people with red hair, though fortunately not usually in patches. Neil took this picture of the most ginger of them.