Hard green elderberries

It doesn't matter how unripe elderberries are, a Wood Pigeon will go for them. The difficulty for these big heavy pigeons is finding somewhere to perch within reach of the food.

Long-Tailed Tits ranged through the bushes at the back of the Albert Memorial in their endless search for insects.

A young Chiffchaff was on the same quest in the dead hawthorn by the Henry Moore sculpture. Like other small warblers, they often join Long-Tailed Tit flocks.

So do Blue Tits and Coal Tits, but not usually Great Tits which tend to stay in the same area. This one in the Flower Walk called loudly for a peanut.

A Starling made off with a bit of pizza crust at the Lido restaurant.

The female Little Owl at the Round Pond had found a different and hard-to-see branch in the lime tree.

The owlet was well inside the horse chestnut sheltering from the wind.

Mark sent two pictures from St James's Park: a young Blackbird ...

... and a Jay lurking in a patch of ivy.

Tom was farther afield at Crossness, where a Franklin's Gull has been seen, and sent a picture of it.This is a rare accidental visitor from North America. It looks very similar to a Black-Headed Gull though it's slightly smaller. The relatively large white spots on the folded wings help to identify it.

The two young Grey Herons in the nest on the island have started climbing around the nest. They'll soon be out on the branches.

Cormorants drying their wings after diving often do a slow flap to speed up the process. It may seem silly that the feathers of a diving bird aren't water repellent, but the feathers that get wet are only the outer layer and if they didn't absorb water the bird would be too buoyant to dive efficiently. (Grebes have a better system: they can clench their outer feathers down to make themselves denser.)

The young Great Crested Grebe on the Long Water is still being fed by its parents, but it's already starting to try to feed itself. Very small fish swimming just below the surface are fairly easy to catch. 

The seven Egyptian goslings are looking quite adult, though I don't think they can fly yet.

A Small White butterfly and a Comma took off. This was filmed in 3x slow motion but they still went too fast to see how they do it.

Other butterflies included a Red Admiral ...

... and a Meadow Brown, the commonest species in the park.

A Common Carder Bee visited a Viper's Bugloss flower in the wildflower patch at the back of the Lido. After a very slow start this year there are now plenty of these bees.