Fluttering

Great Tit fledglings near the bridge chased their parents around demanding food.

A female Magpie at the Round Pond fluttered her wings and called to be fed. This is the display they perform to their mate to make sure that he will feed her when she's on the nest, but in this case she was doing it to me to demand a peanut. Young Magpies also do it, and the fluttering display is common to many species, including the young Great Tits in the previous video.

It was too windy at the Round Pond for a Little Owl to come out. The female at the Serpentine Gallery called but I couldn't get a sight of her through the leaves, so no picture today.

A Starling brought a Crab Spider to its nestlings in the eaves of the Buck Hill shelter.

The two young Grey Herons at the island are now often seen on the floating baskets under their nest.

There was a distant and indistinct view of the Great Crested Grebe chick on the Long Water, which still isn't venturing away from the nest when a parent arrives with a fish. Since it's an only child it doesn't have to race out to beat the others.

I still haven't seen or heard the grebe family that Ahmet Amerikali saw near the Lido.

When Duncan Campbell sent me yesterday's picture of the Coots' nest with abandoned eggs in the northeast pool in the Italian Garden, I wondered whether the five chicks had died. But no, today they were all in fine form. The new nest remains unattended.

The nest in the southeast pool has also been abandoned with no sign of eggs, to the relief of the Moorhen that lives there and was being persecuted by the Coots.

Three of the teenage Coots in the southwest pool had returned to their nest, a comfortable place to hang out.

The Coots nesting on the Mute Swans' island now had four chicks visible. There may have been more out of sight.

The Coots that tried and failed to nest on the tip of the fallen Lombardy poplar at the Vista were having another try and were rebuilding the nest.

More rebuilding: this nest on the buoys at the Lido was being constantly wrecked by the irresponsible staff at the boat hire place racing around in powerboats and raising a huge wash. The Coots had had enough and were dismantling the nest and taking the twigs to a more sheltered place.

The two pairs of Greylags with two and one goslings are staying together on the south shore of the Serpentine, though not actually cooperating. Also present was the Canada which was brought up by Greylags and thinks it's one, but still has the Canada instinct to help with other goslings.

The Canadas with three and one help each other naturally, and were together on the grassy bank at the back of the Lido.

The gang of five teenage Mallards was also at the Lido.

Usually at this time the Lido would be gated off and reserved for paying swimmers, but at present it's closed for swimming and you can still walk along the shore. This is because there is a panic about toxic blue-green algae growing in the recent warmish weather, and large warning notices have been put up all round the lake. However, I can see no trace of blue-green algae despite looking carefully for them for several days. Usually what happens is that the park staff suspect that they're growing and call in a water analyst, who takes a week to present a report by which time if there had been any algae they might have gone away. The notices stay up anyway -- except when there's a moneymaking jamboree. In last year's 'Swim Serpentine' event, with hundreds of competitors, the notices were removed before it began, but in fact I could see blue-green algae at the edge while it was going on. Luckily no one was poisoned as far as I know.

Duncan sent some interesting pictures of Blue-Tailed Damselflies in the Italian Garden. All males are black with blue-tipped abdomen and blue sides to the thorax, but females vary widely in colour. Some are the same colour as the male ...

... but they may be green ...

... or violet ...

or other colours. There is a remarkable composite picture on the British Dragonfly Association's web page showing 15 colour forms.

(Incidentally, this site was barred by my internet provider, Three, which believed it to have so-called 'adult content'. I had to actually enable this content to view it. I notified both the society and Three about this, and they may have sorted out the error by now.)