Starlings and archangels

I was trying to find an angle to photograph the female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery, who was well hidden in the leaves of the lime tree, when there was a rustle and her mate climbed past. He's on the right in this picture.

He flew up to a higher branch where you could get a good view of him.

The male owl at the Round Pond was also showing well in the horse chestnut.

The female Peregrine flew on to the barracks tower in the afternoon.

A young Magpie and a parent rested quietly on an arbutus in the Rose Garden.

A Robin perched on a stump in the Flower Walk. This isn't the one that comes to my hand, but I think it can be persuaded to when the cold weather arrives and the small birds are hungrier.

Chattering could be heard from the upper reaches of the Albert Memorial, and after a good deal of searching I found two Starlings -- they are on the left of this picture. The memorial is a hierarchical structure and the top figures, just under the cross, are the four archangels Gabriel, Rapahel, Michael and Uriel, though they are not labelled so there is no sure way of knowing which is which. However, they are sometimes associated with points of the compass and the birds are on the northernmost angel, who in that case would be Uriel.

Cormorants clustered on the fallen black poplar at the Vista.

The old Grey Heron was back in his customary place under the Henry Moore sculpture.

At the island a heron got too close to another, and inevitably there was a chase.

A Great Crested Grebe preened and flapped to settle its wing feathers comfortably.

One of the grebe chicks from the nest near the bridge was in the shade of the old weeping willow ...

... whose partly collapsed branches are a favourite resting place for Mallards.

The drakes are almost out of eclipse and this one already has a fine iridescent green head.

A male Common Darter dragonfly looked splendid on a dark-leafed shrub in the Dell. PlantNet says that this is Pittosporum tenuifolium, a plant from New Zealand which has the common names of Kohuhu, Tawhiwhi and Black Matipo in various Maori dialects -- not common at all really.

The barriers around the Huntress fountain have finally be removed but she isn't working yet. Maybe they're waiting for some bigwig to ceremonially reopen her, or maybe the plumbing simply isn't connected yet.