A dragonfly nymph

After yesterday's excitement it was back to the normal round in the park.

A young Chiffchaff preened in the dead hawthorn tree near the Henry Moore sculpture, which is visited by all kinds of insect-eating birds.

One of the young Pied Wagtails from the Round Pond had come down to Temple Gate and was wandering about the path, ignoring passing humans. Their rocket-like takeoff keeps them safe from danger.

A Grey Wagtail whizzed past at the island and I got a hasty shot of it holding an unfortunate damselfly before it disappeared into the shrubbery.

The Song Thrush near Peter Pan was still singing from time to time.

A pair of Magpies near the Vista waited for me to put peanuts on the railings for them.

The female Little Owl at the Round Pond looked down from the lime tree.

The owlet flew into a horse chestnut and vanished in the leaves.

After months of dogged persistence the Coots nesting at the bridge now have some eggs.

One pale Greylag was cruising around with its normal mate. The other two pale Greylags seem to be unmated.

The two Mandarin drakes in eclipse are friends outside the breeding season, and go around the lake together. They have become good at persuading people to feed them.

A pair of Tufted Ducks rested side by side.

The two young foxes in the Dell are now usually seen singly and have stopped playing together. They are disturbed by human trespassers in the Dell, whose stupid behaviour was inspired by a TikTok video and have become a constant nuisance. Three people had just climbed out over the spiked railings -- you can imagine what I was cruelly hoping -- and the fox came out of the bushes to watch them go, possibly thinking the same thing.

There was a dragonfly nymph on the wooden hoarding around the scaffolding at the bridge, clinging to the empty shell from which it had just emerged. (The word for a discarded shell is exuvia.) I think it was a Black-Tailed Skimmer but am far from sure. Dragonflies go through several such stages before the adults appear.

A male Emperor butterfly rested in the long grass near the Queen's Temple.

In a normal year the buddleia bush at the northwest corner of the bridge would be alive with butterflies, but now all it could summon was a single Small White.

At least there are good numbers of hardy Buff-Tailed Bumblebees, this one on a ragwort flower at the back of the Lido.

Honeybee numbers are also steady, no doubt helped by the hives at the Ranger's Lodge. A drone browsed on a gaudy montbretia flower in the Rose Garden.