Robins à gogo

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits was at work in a dead lichen-encrusted hawthorn tree near the bridge.

They had brought with them a Coal Tit ...

... and a Chiffchaff of which I couldn't get a good picture, but here is one taken by Neil yesterday.

Neil also reports that there are now four Robins in the Flower Walk which will take food from his hand. This is his picture of one. I fed two of them today.

A Robin in the Rose Garden harmonised with the fallen leaves.

A Dunnock looked for insects on the path near the bridge.  I was lucky to get half a minute's video of it before the inevitable runner thundered past and frightened it away.

There was also a Wren hopping around.

The young Little Owl beside the Round Pond seems to have settled in the dead tree where the nest was, at least for the time being. Neil photographed it there yesterday morning.

Today I looked for it and was about to give up and go away, but at the last moment looked back and there it was, staring at me from barely 15 feet away.

A Black-Headed Gull had scavenged a snack at the Dell restaurant and was having difficulty swallowing it. I think it's part of a churro, a Spanish and Latin American doughnut-like thing that they serve at the restaurant.

A Great Crested Grebe on the Serpentine caught a perch.

The six Mallard ducklings  have amazingly survived for several more days, and are growing well. They have no hesitation in shoving much larger Feral Pigeons out of the way.

The intruding Egyptian Goose at the Henry Moore sculpture was still obstinately there.

The resident pair were sulking on top of the sculpture.

A Common Carder bee in the Rose Garden browsed on a flower which PlantNet tells me is a Chinese giant hyssop, Agastache rugosa.

This is not closely related to the plant normally called hyssop, while the hyssop mentioned in the Old Testament as used for purification is yet something else and no one is sure what. So that's clear, or possibly not.

Two boats were out on the Long Water and the Serpentine performing checks, measuring the water depth and hauling up algae for inspection. I think the recent bloom of blue-green algae has worried the park authorities -- it caused the Lido swimming to be closed down for several days. But actually there's not much you can do about algae, and recent attempts with various kinds of magic dust have had no effect. The lake is shallow, and in hot weather it gets warm. Today the water temperature was 23°C.

Tom was at Rainham Marshes, where there was a Wryneck, a rare visitor. This is his video.

There was a Wryneck in Hyde Park on 2 October 2013, as far as I know the only time one has ever been seen there. The picture appears on the blog entry for 7 October.