A sight of the Cetti's Warbler

The highlight of today was a brief glimpse of the elusive Cetti's Warbler beside the Long Water, which perched for a moment in a bush by the Steiner bench. This isn't much of a photograph, but it's something to get one at all.

There's another Cetti's on the island, absolutely impossible to see and you just hear its loud song.

Wrens are also shy and elusive, but there are so many of them that you can often get pictures. This one was across the path from the leaf yard ...

... and this one beside the Henry Moore sculpture.

A Blackcap was singing in the brambles nearby and emerged for a few seconds before diving back in. There's probably a nest here.

The Song Thrush by the Henry Moore, whom we've heard singing before, had his song answered by a Chiffchaff in a treetop.

A Coal Tit looked down from the top of the corkscrew hazel in the Flower Walk ...

... and a Great Tit stared out of a camellia bush.

The flowers made a pretty background but it wasn't nearly as spectacular as this completely over the top display in the Rose Garden.

Wood Pigeons often eat blossom, but this one in a flowering cherry tree in the Flower Walk preferred the leaves.

Someone had given this Carrion Crow some seeds, possibly pumpkin seeds. Anyway, the crow liked them.

A crow was gathering fibres to line a nest behind the Albert Memorial.

A Magpie perched on a swan-headed urn in the Italian Garden.

This dull picture shows the view you usually get of the Grey Heron in the nest at the west end of the island. It looks as if it's sitting on eggs, but when the pair first occupied that nest, if the heron sat down it disappeared behind the edge. Maybe they have built up the floor a bit.

The young herons from the middle nest were together on the island, looking endearingly gawky and untidy ...

... in contrast to an elegant adult on a fallen tree at Peter Pan.

The Great Crested Grebe pair from the island, on the left here, repelled an intrusion on to what they consider their water by one of the grebes from the nest on the other side of the bridge. They made him back off and congratulated each other. But he'll be back.

The pair at the east end of the island were also displaying near their nest site behind the wire baskets.

The Black Swan and his Mute girlfriend were at the Lido again. She was mirroring his movements, a sign of a growing bond between them -- especially as the head-raising gesture is a Black Swan move.