Hobby parents

Two Hobbies perched together in a plane tree. You can see traces of dull red on the underside of both, so it looks as if these are the parents.

It was still quite windy, and the female Little Owl at the Round Pond was on her usual sheltered branch.

Four Robins could be seen in the Flower Walk. These are the two that still seem to tolerate each other's presence, one on the railings at the edge ...

... and the other in the flower bed below.

Two young Wood Pigeons begged at a parent, which soon got exasperated and flew away. They're quite old enough to feed themselves.

A Bank Holiday weekend had brought a lot of people to the Lido restaurant terrace, and a mass of Starlings were waiting on the umbrellas to pounce on scraps. Oddly in this picture, out of focus above the third bird from the left, you can see the police helicopter hovering over the Notting Hill stabathon, whose dreary thump could be heard all the way to the far end of the park two and a half miles away.

A Grey Heron and two Greylag Geese looked expectant on the edge of the terrace, trying to make someone at a table throw them a titbit.

The two heron chicks were visible in the nest on the island, with a parent standing over them and preening.

The three Great Crested Grebe chicks on the Serpentine are now quite large and very noisy. One was pestering its mother ...

... and the others were with their father, who had just given one a small fish.

It looks as if the grebes on the Long Water are down to three chicks.

The Coots nesting in the Italian Garden seem to have lost enthusiasm. Duncan Campbell, visiting in the morning, saw only one egg left in the nest ...

... and when I went by two hours later a Coot was sitting, but not on the egg which was under its foot. Have they detected that the eggs were infertile?

The Coots at Peter Pan seem to be making a late effort and were rebuilding their nest on the post, watched by the inevitable Black-Headed Gull which is too small to be anything more than a nuisance.

The pair under the Italian Garden were still full of drive and were building up their already large nest.

A Tufted drake turned upside down to preen his underside. He had to paddle with one foot to stay in this position, which caused him to revolve rapidly.

Duncan found two late damselflies in the Italian fountains, a Small Red-Eyed ...

... and a Common Blue.