Another brood of grebe chicks

The Great Crested Grebes nesting in the willow by the bridge have two chicks. A parent brought a small fish for one of them.

The chicks had a quick swim before climbing on to a parent's back to keep warm.

The grebes with three chicks have reappeared, lurking under a tree south of the Vista.

There were seven Mandarins on the lake today, a record number, plus another one on the Round Pond. Three females preened together next to the Dell restaurant, and a fourth cruised past.

This is a drake in eclipse at the Vista. You can see a few remnants of his breeding finery. The iridescent blue secondary feathers remain even in eclipse.

Returning Cormorants perched in their favourite tree on the Serpentine island. They prefer bare branches, which are easier for these big clumsy birds to land on. Actually it seems surprising that they manage it at all.

At the Round Pond it was the turn of the male Little Owl to stand on the family's usual branch. I'm beginning to think that he enjoys posing for his portrait. I always talk encouragingly to him.

The female at the Serpentine Gallery was in the lime tree.

The Reed Warbler feeding chicks was again visible by the Italian Garden.

Ahmet Amerikali got a picture of one of the chicks.

Long-Tailed Tits worked their way down the edge of the Long Water.

It started to rain heavily in the afternoon. One of the Peregrines huddled miserably on the tower.

A hardy Buff-Tailed Bumblebee was out in the rain, sensibly keeping to the underside of the globe thistles.

But otherwise it was a hopeless day for insects, so here are some non-bee pictures taken earlier by Duncan Campbell.

A Holly Blue butterfly fed on a flower.

A Silver Y moth clearly showed the Y marking that gives it its name.

A Hornet Hoverfly looked enormous on an eryngium flower -- but it's a dwarf eryngium in the Rose Garden and the insect is only as big as the Hornet it mimics.

This is the strangest of the batch, a small wasp with the scientific name Gasteruption jaculator. Note the way it holds its abdomen up at an angle, and the incredibly long ovipositor of this female. 

The name could do with an explanation. Gasteruption comes from the Greek γαστήρ (gastēr), belly, and  ὕπτιος ([h]uptios), turned up. Jaculator is Latin for javelin thrower, because of the long ovipositor which this parasitoid insect uses to inject its eggs into the nests of solitary bees and wasps, where the larvae devour the larvae of the hosts.

Tinúviel hand fed sparrows at a café in Gijón on the north coast of Spain. How I miss them here in London.

Finally, a tricky problem for the boat hire people. Last night some joyriders took a pedalo on to the Long Water and abandoned it. It drifted under one of the water spouts of the Italian Garden, filled with water, and sank until it was firmly aground and much too heavy to tow off. It will have to be pumped out before it can be moved.