Great Crested Grebe chick at the island

A Coal Tit fidgeted and preened in a crabapple tree at Mount Gate. I hadn't seen it for weeks, but it remembered me and came to my hand for a pine nut.

There's never been a lapse with the Great Tits, which come pouring out of the bushes everywhere all the year round.

A young Robin appeared for a moment in a bush in the Flower Walk, than vanished into the leaves.

A young Blackbird near the Italian Garden took off from a branch.

Only one Little Owl could be seen at the Round Pond, the male who was on a horse chestnut branch.

A Black-Headed Gull took it easy on a post by the bridge.

It was a relief to find that the young Grey Herons can now fly well enough to get back up to the nest.

The first Great Crested Grebe chick has hatched in the nest on the chain at the Serpentine island. It climbed on to its father's back and its mother brought it a feather, a necessary part of a grebe's diet to prevent its insides from being scratched by sharp fishbones.

The Coots at the bridge looked downcast. Their three chicks have been taken, probably by a Herring Gull. This is the second brood they've lost here this year. Even Coots can be discouraged and probably they won't try again.

The young Coot under the Italian Garden, the sole survivor of a brood, was playing at nest building with its parents.

Above it, a Moorhen walked round the edge of the lower bowl of the marble fountain.

One of the two single cygnets on the Serpentine. It's going through the awkward stage where it's no longer an adorable little fluffy thing but not yet an elegant teenager.

The four Canada x Greylag Goose hybrids were on the shore near the Triangle. It looks as if they're siblings as their faces are quite similar and their feet are all the same dull greyish pink. Foot colour is very variable in these hybrids.

Tufted ducklings can dive well from the moment they are hatched. Here they are busily bobbing up and down. This makes it hard to count them but I think that all nine have survived so far.

The globe thistles in the Rose Garden were alive with Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.

Another browsed on a bright Busy Lizzy in the Italian Garden.

Red Admiral butterflies have a casual habit of sunning themselves in the middle of the path. They must enjoy the heat radiating from the sun-warmed tarmac.

Otherwise the only butterfly was a Meadow Brown on a bramble leaf. It's curious that although several buddleia bushes are in bloom I have yet to see a butterfly on one.