Imperial antics

A Blackcap looked for blackberries in a bramble patch at Peter Pan.

The familiar Chaffinch, who may appear almost anywhere in Kensington Gardens, picked me up at the bridge and collected several pine nuts.

One of the young Peregrines was lying down on the ledge on the barracks tower.

The male Little Owl at the Round Pond was well hidden in a horse chestnut tree and it took some time to find him.

A pair of Herring Gulls, moaning affectionately at each other, drove out a young one that had got too close to them.

Pigeon Eater stared imperiously from his station on the roof. The remains of a Feral Pigeon farther up the shore showed that he had had his lunch.

The little stream in the Dell, with is less than 50 yards long, provides space for just one Grey Heron to fish at a time. When a second one arrived they had to walk off carefully in opposite directions to avoid a fight.

The posts in the middle of the Long Water which are all that remain of the ill-fated tern raft provide a place for Cormorants. We still don't have many, as this year's fish haven't grown large enough to be worth catching. Some young perch at Peter Pan were the largest I've seen, and they were barely two inches long.

The three Great Crested Grebe chicks were aboard their father at the island.

They don't seem to be using their nest any more, and a Coot had occupied it.

The pair of Mute Swans that nested behind the railings on the west side of the boathouse have now set up on the east side. They aren't nesting, just using it as a place where they are safe from dogs. This side would be cooler on a hot afternoon.

There was a confrontation between dragonflies at the Vista. A pair of Lesser Emperors were setting down to mate on a floating twig when a female (large) Emperor flew over them. You can see the brown thorax of the Lesser Emperors; Emperors have a green thorax.

She knocked them off the twig. In this picture she's at the bottom, and the two Lessers have had to take off.

They flew to the spiked railings but found them an awkward spot ...

 ... and moved to a more comfortable place on an upright.

A Small Red-Eyed Damselfly rested on an iris leaf in the Italian Garden.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee was browsing busily on a clump of a different kind of verbena in the Flower Walk. It's American Blue Vervain, Verbena hastata. And no, it isn't blue, that would be too much to ask.