Happy upside down

A young Long-Tailed Tit hung upside down by one foot, a perfectly comfortable position for it. They are now completely independent and finding their own insects.

So are the young Starlings at the Lido restaurant. This one had scavenged a chip.

A young Magpie was begging near the Queen's Temple, but it too is old enough to find food for itself, and its parents took no notice of it.

A Magpie sunbathed in the long grass, with that pathetic crashed look that birds have when they are basking.

A female Blackcap looked out from a hawthorn tree near the Henry Moore sculpture.

The male Little Owl at the Round Pond was on the dead tree.

At the Serpentine Gallery the owlet was begging in the nest tree but I simply couldn't see it, despite going round and round the tree and inspecting it from every angle. Just as I was about to give up and go home the male started calling from the next tree and he was visible, though in an awkward place for a photograph.

The Great Crested Grebes' nest opposite Peter Pan is going well, though it's still too early for chicks.

So is the one below the Diana fountain, but I don't think the nest that I hoped was going up on the island has materialised. Two pairs were having a territorial dispute at the corner of the island.

A Moorhen had a wash in the little stream in the Dell, then climbed on to its favourite rock to dry and preen.

Moorhens like to sit on the edge of the Serpentine. If there is a patch of weeds, no matter how small, they will do their best to lurk in it. This teenager was behind the railings of one of the small boathouses.

Blondie the Egyptian Goose has just got through her moult, and was preening her new grey flight feathers. You can see that she hasn't quite removed the last of the blue wrappings that enclosed the emerging feathers. The last shot compares the dark brown feathers of normal Egyptians.

The Mallard at Peter Pan, who had five ducklings when last seen, now has only one.

The lake is a most hostile place for ducklings, though usually a few get through and the four teenagers on the Serpentine are thriving.

 

The Mute cygnet with the injured leg has been rescued.

It was a good day for butterflies. A Brimstone drank from a Verbena bonariensis ...

... and another climbed into a bindweed flower to feed.

A Comma perched on a leaf near the bridge.

I also saw a Peacock and (probably) a Small Skipper, but neither would stop to have their picture taken.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee covered itself with pollen in a hollyhock.

An Emperor dragonfly perched on the railings of the Dell. Dragonflies and damselflies like iron railings when these are warmed by the sun.