The timid heron finally emerges

The male Chaffinch in the Rose Garden shrubbery ...

... and the young Robin are now confidently coming out to take pine nuts from the ground.

The male Blackbird lurked in a bush. I've tried to tempt him with raisins but so far without effect. Blackbirds are extremely nervous creatures.

The weather has now broken with a thunderstorm, but the afternoon was hot and sultry and a Carrion Crow at the bridge was panting to cool down.

The female Little Owl at the Round Pond was in the shade of her usual lime tree ...

... and the male was at the top of a horse chestnut.

Pigeon Eater was in his customary place on the roof of the Dell restaurant. The building just doesn't look right without his menacing presence.

The timid young Grey Heron has finally made it out of the nest. It was scratching itself in a tree.

Its sibling was in another tree. You can tell them apart because the timid heron has more of a punk hairdo.

The young heron from the previous nest, a couple of months older, has lost all its juvenile spikiness, though its grey face will remain till its next moult.

The three Great Crested Grebe chicks at the island were having a grand time rushing around and chasing each other, watched over by their devoted parents.

While the family that own this nest were playing at the island, another pair came in and inspected the nest. But they realised that confronting a pair on their own territory, with the moral advantage of having chicks, was going to fail and soon left.

The indomitable Coots at the bridge, having lost their chicks for a second time, were back on the nest. Will they really have the energy to try again?

The single Mute cygnet on the Serpentine already has that imperious swan stare.

A female Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonfly perched on a bench in the Rose Garden.

There was a head-on view of a Speckled Wood butterfly on a bramble leaf near the Italian Garden.

Like many butterflies, it appears to have only four legs. It does have six but the front pair are greatly reduced and of no use.