The elusive Wren

The yew hedges in the Flower Walk are full of Wrens, but you hardly ever see them. Today one obligingly came into sight.

The dominant Robin waited on the railings for his daily treat ...

... and another at Mount Gate was also looking expectant.

The Little Owl at the Round Pond was deep in the leaves of the horse chestnut tree and it was impossible to get a clear view of her.

After a chilly morning the sunshine was warm enough to start a Feral Pigeon sunbathing under the Henry Moore sculpture ...

... and also the resident Grey Heron, not looking its most elegant in this pose.

Ian Young found a returning Common Gull at the Round Pond. They don't usually arrive till well into the autumn.

Pigeon Eater, in his usual place by the Dell restaurant, was looking annoyed ...

... because the shore had been invaded by a mob of Herring Gulls and there were too many for him to chase away. Evidently someone had been throwing food around and they had arrived en masse from the moored boats where they usually perch. This picture shows how the overwhelming majority of them are young birds, most of which will have come from their breeding ground nearby in Paddington.

A young Moorhen climbed around in the reed bed next to the bridge. It is from the nest that the Moorhens build every year in a disused drainpipe which you can see looking down from the bridge.

The Coots under the Italian Garden are now down to two chicks from the original four. This is probably the work of the large pike which lurk up the north end of the Long Water.

The algae here which annoy the park keepers are a boon to fishing birds, as small fish lurk under their shade. A Great Crested Grebe darted about looking for them.

The grebe chicks on the Serpentine, older than those on the Long Water, are beginning to grow little black crests.

The Shoveller drake at the Vista is not alone.

There was a female at Peter Pan.

Yesterday I saw a Red Admiral butterfly perching on the trunk of an evergreen oak in the Rose Garden, as shown in the thumbnail for this video. Today there were two Speckled Wood butterflies in the same place, and I wondered what the attraction was. Then I found some wasps, and realised that they were all drinking sweet sap oozing out of cracks in the bark.

There are Speckled Woods all over the park now. This rather tattered one was on a leaf by the Round Pond.