Wagtails around the pumpkin

The Little owlet at the Round Pond was restless and flying around. Here it is in a horse chestnut.

Its father kept an eye on it from the dead tree and remained quite calm even when several people were looking at him.

A short compilation of different views.

There were at least ten Pied Wagtails at the Round Pond, mostly clustered around the giant pumpkin. This young one is already old enough to hunt insects for itself.

A Greenfinch singing his mild wheezing song in the top of a hawthorn tree by the Long Water was answered and outclassed by a Song Thrush in the next tree.

The Grey Heron often seen at the northwest corner of the bridge stood in the middle of the path and I had to shoo it away to get past.

There were three pairs of Great Crested Grebes near the Serpentine island. The resulting territorial dispute turned into a brief fight.

The nest on the chain is still holding together. This sloppy mess seems to be stronger than it looks.

The Coots' nest just south of the Peter Pan waterfront hasn't been used for nesting since the chicks grew up, but it remains a place to rest and so is getting larger and larger as the unstoppable Coots keep adding twigs to it.

The nest on the post doesn't seem to be making any progress but the Coots are hanging on with their usual tenacity.

It's the same with the nest under the Dell restaurant terrace. All these nests have been in use for months.

The mother of one of the single Mute cygnets on the Serpentine was cruising around in a defensive attitude, further ruffled up by a brisk tailwind.

A quiet moment at the Vista allowed the Egyptian Goose to bring her four youngsters on to the grass for a feed.

A Blue-Tailed Damselfly rested on an iris leaf in the Italian Gaden.

A Mining Bee browsed on a clump of pink mallow near the Norwegian merchant navy memorial stone in Hyde Park. It's clearly an Andrena species but I can't say which.

Later: Duncan Campbell thought it was a Chocolate Mining Bee, Andrena scotica, but wasn't sure because the picture didn't show the abdomen clearly. Here's a picture from another angle that shows he was right.

Duncan found a Wool Carder Bee in the Rose Garden. They've been scarce this year, like most of the flying insects.

He also got two shining Rosemary Beetles on a lavender flower ...

... and a jazzy Fourteen-Spot Ladybird on a leaf.

Not seeing a Kingfisher

A sunny Saturday and a noisy music festival in Hyde Park meant that the park was jam-packed with people, so there wasn't much to see. At least the male Little Owl at the Round Pond made a welcome appearance, preening in his usual lime tree.

The owlet flew on to a horse chestnut branch.

Several flocks on Long-Tailed Tits were roaming around. One was feeding in a tree anemone behind the Albert Memorial ...

... and another in the top of a larch in the Rose Garden.

The usual male Chaffinch in the Rose Garden was on a high twig eating an insect.

A Blackbird perched on the railings in the Flower Walk.

Ahmet Amerikali got a picture of a Reed Warbler in the reeds under the Italian Garden.

He also saw a Kingfisher flying from the east end of the Serpentine towards the island. We both looked for it carefully all around the lake but it stayed out of sight.

A Grey Wagtail ran along the edge of the Serpentine by the terrace of the Lido restaurant.

A Grey Heron landed neatly on the fallen poplar at the Vista.

The Great Crested Grebe chick on the Long Water was diving alongside its father, just playing but at the same time learning to fish.

The precarious nest at the Serpentine island has held together for another day. 

The young Moorhen here is absolutely fearless and pecks at your shoes to see if there's anything to eat on them.

The Black Swan languidly extended a large foot.

The Bar-Headed x Greylag Goose hybrid trotted up to be given a peanut.

The Egyptian Goose with four half-grown goslings at the Vista saw people on the shore and hurried over in the hope of being fed.

A Meadow Brown butterfly fed on a bramble flower.

A patch of lavender by the Dell attracted Honeybees ...

... and a Common Carder.

A good day for Wagtails

A young Pied Wagtail ran around the lawn by the Albert Memorial calling for its father to feed it.

They flew up on to the Memorial steps and a second young one joined them.

Another at the Round Pond had found a small larva.

A Grey Wagtail hunted along the muddy edge of the Serpentine.

A family of Reed Warblers were bustling around in the reeds below the Diana fountain. This is a young one.

Chiffchaffs have a long singing season, and this one is still going at the end of June when most songbirds have fallen silent.

The usual Chaffinch arrived at the Serpentine Gallery and called loudly for pine nuts.

A young Carrion Crow begged a parent to feed it, without result. So it grabbed a peanut and ran off with it.

The Little owlet at the Round Pond looked out of the nest hole.

Its mother, not seen for some time, was in the lime tree.

When I went back later the father was in the same tree on his usual branch.

Quite a lot of Black-Headed Gulls have now returned to the Round Pond and were loafing on the gravel strip.

A Grey Heron was fishing under the Italian Garden, waiting for an incautious fish to come out from under the mat of algae.

Moorhens can run over the algae as long as they don't stop.

The pair of Great Crested Grebes on the Long Water by the bridge were hanging around a Coot's nest looking envious. It's much better built than the sloppy mess they made themselves.

A pair on the Serpentine were fishing together. They took a moment off work to have a little display.

The precarious nest on the chain at the island is still intact.

All kinds of things go on in the Buck Hill shelter, from Aikido to Zumba, but a Chinese fan dance lesson is a new one for me.

A clump full of small birds

The little clump of trees across the path from the Henry Moore sculpture has a remarkable variety of small birds in it. Today there was a Dunnock calling loudly ...

... a Blue Tit on top of the half-dead hawthorn ...

... a Chiffchaff ...

... and a family of Long-Tailed Tits including this young one.

Not seen here today are a pair of Robins, and several Wrens and Great Tits.

Ahmet Amerikali was at Russia Dock Woodlands, where he saw a Chiffchaff collecting fluff off seed heads. It's very late to be nesting, so evidently this is a second brood.

It was quite windy at the exposed Round Pond, but the male Little Owl had to stay out to guard the owlet.

The owlet was looking out of the hole in the nest tree.

Jin Yucheng was in Thailand and photographed the Little Owl's smaller Southern Asian relative the Spotted Owlet, Athene brama. This is an adult: the name 'owlet' is given to this charming little creature because it's small, not because it's young.

Young Carrion Crows have to learn how to shell a peanut by holding it with one foot while pecking at the shell. This one near the bridge had just found out how to do it but wasn't good at it yet.

There was a view of the Great Crested Grebe nesting in the willow under the bridge.

There's another grebe nest, recklessly built on the chain surrounding the Serpentine island, and it already has one egg in it.

Why they didn't build in the bushes behind the wire baskets, where there is a perfectly good site that has been used many times before, is a mystery. The chief danger to the nest, apart from its exposed position, is the behaviour of the staff at the boat hire, who zoom around in powerful boats at 25 mph raising enormous wakes. I did talk to someone there but doubt it will make the slightest difference. Oh for the days of Bluebird Boats, whose people understood and cared for the birds on the lake.

The Egyptian Geese with four half-grown goslings on the Long Water had the expected run-in with the killer Mute Swan's family. Here the female swan is attacking the female Egyptian ...

... but she managed to flee along with her brood.

More danger on the Serpentine, where one of the six small Egyptian goslings had strayed away from its mother while she was busy shooing away a Coot.

Luckily she noticed and called it back, and the family made their way around a swan without further incident.

A Honeybee browsed on a cranesbill flower at the east end of the Lido.

How many men does it take to put a stem on a pumpkin?