The elusive woodpecker

The distinctive 'chip' call of a Great Spotted Woodpecker sets you looking for it, but it's seldom as visible as this (and sometimes it turns out to be a Starling doing a very good imitation of the call). This is a male, as you can see from the red patch on the back of his neck. He was near the Steiner bench, where I have seen them before several times.

A Chiffchaff was calling loudly and bouncing around in the trees near Peter Pan. It was almost impossible to photograph and the only clear view I got was a back one.

Three Magpies lower in the same holly tree seemed to be plotting some dreadful exploit.

A Carrion Crow drank and splashed on the algae-encrusted marble fountain on the edge of the Italian Garden.

A Jay near the Henry Moore sculpture was looking smarter than the usual scruffy lot around at the moment.

A tricolour Feral Pigeon was also striking in the Flower Walk. This is the original wild Rock Dove colour scheme interrupted by white patches.

A Wood Pigeon looked bewildered in a bramble thicket. They love blackberries, but these grow on the end of thin stems are are difficult for a heavy bird to get at. The only way is to find a stronger twig below a clump and reach for it from there.

The male Little Owl at the Round Pond stared down from the top of a chestnut tree. There was a big dog running around underneath, something they really hate even when they are a safe seventy feet up.

Tom was at Rainham Marshes and got a good picture of a young Sedge Warbler. The stagnant background of dead reeds and duckweed sets it off very well.

The adventurous young Grey Heron at the island had occupied the Great Crested Grebes' now disused nest and was trying to catch small fish from it. It didn't get anything while I was there, but it's earning useful life skills ...

... unlike its idle sibling which was lurking in the nest again. We know it can fly, but its just can't be bothered. It's going to get a rude shock when its parents stop feeding it. 

With three hungry chicks and the available fish very small, the grebes are having to work hard to feed them. It was the mother's turn to do the fishing, and she managed to find one for each of them in five minutes.

The Coot on the new nest in the northwest pool in the Italian Garden shifted position for long enough to give a glimpse of the eggs.

Another Greylag family with three teenagers has flown in after breeding in a safer place outside the park.

The Egyptians tend to moult in a much more disorganised way than the big geese. This one is very late and only just starting to regrow its flight feathers.

Five Red-Crested Pochard drakes crossed the Long Water at the Vista.

Only the usual insects were on view today, but they can make quite pretty pictures. A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee browsed on a patch of verbena in the Rose Garden ...

... and a Honeybee was busy on Black-Eyed Susan in the Flower Walk.