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?