Fidgety owlet

The young Little Owl at the Round Pond was in a restless mood, fidgeting on a horse chestnut branch.

Its mother perched on the end of the hollow branch of the dead tree.

A Pied Wagtail sprinted across the mown grass by the pond, high stepping like an American trotting horse.

There was a Grey Wagtail on the edge of the Serpentine at the Lido restaurant. This is the mother of the young one we've seen here.

A Greenfinch perched on the top of a hawthorn tree near Peter Pan. They like the highest available viewpoint.

Long-Tailed Tits worked through the bushes in the Rose Garden.

A Coal Tit came out of the corkscrew hazel in the Flower Walk.

Feral Pigeons courted on a rubbish bin.

Ahmet Amerikali sent two pictures from Russia Dock Woodlands: a Robin carrying a spider to its young ...

... and a female House Sparrow on a reed.

The Grey Heron chicks on the island were bobbing around in their nest.

The young one from the previous brood was fishing at the Triangle.

Two pairs of Great Crested Grebes on the Serpentine staked rival claims to territory, and there was a brief chase.

The new chick could be distantly seen on the far side of the Long Water ...

... and the older one hurried towards a parent at Peter Pan.

The Mute cygnets rested on the gravel with their mother.

The Black Swan was by the Dell restaurant.

A Meadow Brown butterfly properly in a meadow. There are plenty of them in the long grass near the Queen's Temple but they seldom settle, and when they do they are usually hidden by the grass.

A new Great Crested Grebe chick

The second Great Crested Grebe nest on the Long Water has produced at least one chick, here being carried by its father -- there may be another out of sight. The sound you can hear is from the older chick from the other nest.

The mother took a break from fishing and rested under the willow tree where she nested.

The Coots under the Dell restaurant terrace have also made progress at last and have at least one egg.

But the Egyptian Goose nearby is down to two goslings, a sad reduction from her original ten.

The three Canada x Greylag hybrid geese crossed the road to browse on the grass on the other side.

There was a fourth hybrid with a speckled head farther along the shore.

A young Canada ate a fallen plum from a tree at the Triangle.

After a heavy shower the Grey Heron chicks in the nest on the island were in a damp huddle.

The new gravel strip in the Round Pond is a busy place, at the moment covered with Black-Headed Gulls returned from their breeding ground with some young birds, plus a Mallard drake, two female Gadwalls at the end of the strip, a pair of Great Crested Grebes fishing around the edge, and a Coot which nested unsuccessfully -- you can see the remains of its nest behind the Gadwalls. The strip is covered in bird droppings, and if YouTube did smells I'd have to turn the volume down.

This is one of the young Black-Headed Gulls.

There was also a third female Gadwall in the water nearby.

A young Pied Wagtail was also on the gravel, looking slightly damp.

I hadn't expected to see the Little Owls in the rain, but as soon as it stopped the male owl emerged from the nest hole and flew into a horse chestnut tree.

The owlet had evidently been trying to shelter in another horse chestnut, not too successfully as you can see that it's quite wet.

A female Blackbird collected two slugs to take to her nest near the Italian Garden.

The Magpies in the nest in the Triangle shrubbery have nested successfully, and one of the young ones was on the shore.

Two Carrion Crows perched in the top of a small lime tree.

There are a few places in the park where you can see the tower of the deserted hotel in the Cromwell Road nearly a mile away, where the Peregrines that we usually see on the barracks have been nesting and raising chicks. As I passed one of these viewpoints I noticed a Peregrine perched on the corner of the roof -- too far away to tell which one, of course.

Goldcrests nesting again

The female Little Owl at the Round Pond perched in the lime tree. I only saw later, when I looked at the pictures on the computer, that she was holding a caterpillar that she intended to feed to the owlet, which was evidently inside the nest hole in the dead tree. She was waiting for me to go away so that she could fly over without revealing the location of the nest (though of course I knew perfectly well where it was).

The male was in a horse chestnut on the other side of the nest tree.

This isn't a good picture, as it was snatched in a hurry and I only got one shot. A Goldcrest came out under a bench in the Flower Walk carrying a bit of plant fibre, and whizzed away into a tree. There must be a pair building a second nest. I've never seen a Goldcrest on the ground before.

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits moved through the trees in the Rose Garden.

Blue Tits jumped about in the top of a hawthorn tree near the Steiner bench. This is a young one, grey and green rather than adult blue and yellow.

There was a Coal Tit in the same tree, but it wouldn't give me a clear view.

A Wren climbed around in the dense leaves of a hornbeam, coming partly into sight from time to time.

The young Grey Wagtail -- I think there's only one -- is now independent and was hunting along the shore at the Lido restaurant. Its grey back and bright underside make it wonderfully well camouflaged in these surroundings.

A Grey Heron has been fishing for several days in the same spot under the parapet of the Italian Garden. The mats of algae provide cover for fish, which the heron grabs as soon as they come into sight.

Cormorants are beginning to return to the lake as this year's young fish get large enough to interest them. Two preened on posts at Peter Pan.

The young Great Crested Grebe here is diving a lot now, but this is still just play and it's not catching anything yet. It saw its father with a fish and rushed over to grab it. The adult dived to find another.

Three young Egyptian Geese rested in a huddle at the Vista, but the middle one was fidgety and disturbed the others. One tried to hold it still, but it wriggled free.

There are two pale Greylag Geese moulting on the Serpentine. We've seen the very pale one already -- picture in the blog entry for 5 June. This one is darker.

A patch of phlomis in the Rose Garden was visited by several Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.

The oxeye daisies attracted a small bee about ³⁄₈ inch (1 cm) long. It looked to me like a Leaf-Cutter Bee, a species of Megachile, but I was far from sure. Later: Duncan Campbell thinks it's not one, but rather a Colletes, probably C. daviesianus.

There was an even smaller fly, about which I have no idea.

The pomegranate bush behind the Big Bird statue is flowering, and there are already some small developing fruits.

Repairs to the bridge are beginning in earnest. Only structural repairs will be done this year. The replacement balustrade will have to wait till next summer.