A good owl day

The female Little Owl at the Round Pond, not seen for some time, graciously came out on the end of the branch of the nest tree.

She was not worried by an Egyptian Goose sitting on top of the tree and looking down on her.

The female owl at the Serpentine Gallery also appeared in the afternoon.

The familiar male Chaffinch can turn up anywhere between the Flower Walk and the Round Pond. Today he arrived at Temple Gate next to the bridge and perched expectantly on a fallen branch.

The female of the elusive pair of Blackbirds in the Rose Garden shrubbery was visible for a moment before she retreated into a bush.

The Long-Tailed Tits at the southwest corner of the bridge are still working on the main structure of their nest. One arrived with a strand of spider web, which they get from the roof of the tunnel under the bridge.

A Wren perched on a bramble just up the hill from the Henry Moore sculpture.

About half the Black-Headed Gulls have now left, and almost all the Common Gulls though there was still one on the edge of the Serpentine.

The pair of Grey Herons in the nest at the west end of the island were together. It's not clear whether they have any eggs yet.

A Cormorant perched on a branch. I still haven't managed to see one landing on a branch, though I did see one flying off which caused the rebounding branch to thrash around violently. The same must happen in reverse when they arrive and they would have to hang on for dear life with their not very grippy webbed feet.

The pair of Great Crested Grebes on the Long Water were fishing under the Italian Garden.

A pair of Coots have started nesting in one of the planters in the Italian Garden, entering through a hole cut in the mesh. The holes were cut a couple of years ago after a Coot chick got stuck in the mesh and had to be rescued.

The Black Swan and his girlfriend were at the Dell restaurant and seemed to be conversing in some way that they have managed.

The Egyptians on the Serpentine are down to three goslings already, from seven yesterday.

The pair on the Long Water were sheltering theirs on the nesting island, so they couldn't be counted.

There are also seven older goslings on the traffic island at Marble Arch, but some of the family were hidden in the bushes so there was no photo opportunity.

At least a dozen Buff-Tailed Bumblebees were browsing on the Chinese Barberry bush by Temple Gate.

The returfing of the huge area of the Parade Ground wrecked by the Winter Wasteland is done at tremendous speed but with impressive precision. A JCB with a horned pickup collects big rolls on turf from the place where they are delivered and blasts up to the area being covered, where the rolls are transferred to tractors which unroll them on the prepared ground. (The continuity in this sequence is slightly off because the pickup was filmed last, by which time the turf was being laid so fast that the driver had switched from carrying two rolls to three.)

A few days ago someone photographed a little party of Scots Guards in full dress uniform carrying the regimental colours encased in a black cloth bag along the South Carriage Drive. No one knew why they were doing it and there was considerable speculation, one view being that they were rehearsing for King Charles's funeral. Anyway, today it happened again. A Green Woodpecker laughed sardonically at the spectacle.