Nesting Robins

There was twittering and movement in a bush in a Rose Garden, and a Robin came down in the flower bed underneath. So now I know where their nest is, despite their efforts yesterday to conceal it.

Duncan Campbell got a fine picture of a Robin whose nest is further advanced and was bringing insects to it. This might be a male feeding his mate on the nest, or there might already be young.

A Blackbird sang in a tree in the Rose Garden ...

... where the magnificent Caucasian Elm is just coming into leaf.

This is the first Blackcap I've seen this year. He was singing in one of the Italian alders on Buck Hill.

The Magpie pair below the Triangle car park were looking very cosy together.

They have made themselves a new nest this year, although the old one is still intact.

A Jackdaw perched on the Little Owls' tree near the Round Pond. I didn't see an owl, though.

A Carrion Crow had won a bit of cake from the Dell restaurant and was dunking it in a puddle.

More pictures from Duncan Campbell: a Lesser Black-Backed Gull had killed a Feral Pigeon at the Round Pond , and was shooing a crow away from it. This is the female of a pair, and Duncan thinks it was she who had killed the pigeon.

She was reluctantly sharing it with her mate.

Neither of these is our familiar pigeon killer, or any of the three wannabes I've seen beside the Serpentine. At roughly the time when Duncan was taking these pictures, I found the pair in their usual place at the Dell restaurant.

The two young Grey Herons were down from the nest and exploring the island. Everything is new and exciting, and their parents are still feeding them when they return to the nest -- but not for ever, so they need to learn to fish.

A parent kept an eye on them from a tree on the shore.

The heron with the red bill was still standing in the nest at the west end of the island. No sign of eggs, or it would be sitting. (I did see it sitting once, but this was a false alarm as it was just keeping out of the wind.)

Greylag Geese were eating new willow leaves beside the Serpentine. Both geese and swans find these very tasty, and soon all the lakeside trees will to cropped to the highest level a swan can reach, giving them a curiously neat appearance.

A fox slunk through the long grass at the edge of the Long Water.