Two Little Owls at the Round Pond

Two Little Owls could be seen at the Round Pond, both in the usual horse chestnut tree. This is the familiar female we see almost daily.

You would have expected the other to be her mate, but this is clearly a female owl with unusually short eyebrows. She may be their single offspring from this year come back to visit her old haunts. The established female made no effort to throw her out.

A Jackdaw perched on the owls' nest tree.

A Song Thrush ate fruit in the yew to the north of Peter Pan.

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits moved along the edge of the Serpentine. I've never worked out whether there are several winter flocks or whether we're seeing the same one over and over again as it moved quickly around the park.

A row of Black-Headed Gulls preened together on the plastic buoys at the Lido.

A Grey Heron was fishing under the collapsed willow at the bridge.

A Cormorant had a frantic wash on the Long Water ...

... and scrambled on to a post to dry itself.

Another Cormorant was nudged away by a Coot, and went. It really had nothing to fear, but aggressive Coots are a nuisance to birds of any size.

Two pairs of Great Crested Grebes hang around near the south shore of the Serpentine a short way to the east of the island. All is peaceful until the west wind brings the western pair drifting ...

... within 40 yards of the eastern pair, which then wake up and call a warning and sometimes have a small display until the western pair retreat. They used to have bigger disputes than this, even fights, but have now settled down.

Gadwall and Pochard drakes perched side by side at the Vista.

There are still some Common Carder bees. This one was in a baby sage bush in the Rose Garden.

The Chinese Rice Paper tree in the Dell has produced its odd furry flowers.

This is part of the original plan of the Dell when it was landscaped in the 1880s to display subtropical plants, though it may not be an original tree from that time. There are some New Zealand tree ferns nearby. Later additions are three Dawn Redwoods: believed to be an extinct species known only from fossils, it was discovered growing in China in 1941, after which specimens were sent to botanical gardens in other countries. The latest addition is another tree thought extinct, the Wollemi Pine, of which living specimens were discovered in Australia in 1994. The Dell is now on its second one, as the first one died.

A pansy waited to be planted at the Lido restaurant. The variety is Matrix Solar Flare and I find it quite sinister.

Lastly, after I was doubtful of the species of the frilly-edged bracket fungus pictured yesterday, Duncan Campbell has found another. It's on the left of his picture, growing next to some plainer kind of polypore. I hope Mario can identify these, as I certainly can't.