Keeping cool

On a hot afternoon a Carrion Crow took advantage of the fountain in the Italian Garden for a drink and a quick splash.

There was movement in a bramble patch near Peter Pan and a glimpse of a little beak reaching for a blackberry.

It turned out to belong to a female Blackcap.

The male Little Owl at the Round Pond is much more mobile than the female and you never know where you are going to find him, if at all. Today he was in the top of a horse chestnut.

The female was preening in her usual place in the lime tree.

I didn't find the young one which, like its father, is in a different place every day.

Both the young Peregrines were on the barracks.

I heard one of the adults calling as it flew over Kensington Gardens, but it was behind trees and I didn't see it.

The Kingfishers at Rainham Marshes that I photographed on the 11th have now brought out two fledglings. Tom sent a fine picture of one of them being given a fish by its mother ...

... and he also shot a brief video of one fidgeting and begging on the same twig.

The young Grey Herons at the island weren't in a mood for climbing around, and were preening in the nest. These two seem less adventurous than the two from the last brood, which were all over the tree at this age.

The Great Crested Grebes' nest in the water below is still in one piece. It only has to last a few more days before the chicks hatch and can be carried safely on a parent's back.

The grebes on the Long Water lost their newest chick and the older one is now grown up and fending for itself, so they are thinking of breeding again and have made a typically slipshod nest on an oak branch.

The sitting Coot at the bridge was keeping the chicks under its wing, so I still can't tell how many there are.

There was an occasional glimpse of a little red head.

The two young foxes in the Dell are mostly seen by themselves now, but they're still not too grown-up for an occasional game.

In hot weather there is less dissolved oxygen in the water and the carp in the Italian Garden come up near the surface to be able to breathe better.

Two more of the wide range of flowers visited by Honeybees: the strange Heuchera sanguinea 'Coral Bells' ...

... and common white clover in the grass by the Italian Garden.