Kingfisher on the Long Water

Today's best sighting was of a Kingfisher on the Long Water by the Italian Garden. It's a male, as you can tell from its all-black bill -- females have an orange lower mandible. These occasional visitors are usually seen here only in winter.

Pigeon Eater, in his usual spot by the Dell restaurant, consumed as much of his latest victim as he wanted and left the remains for a Carrion Crow which had been watching from a safe distance. The difference in styles is very obvious. The gull doesn't use his feet to hold the pigeon down, and has to drag it around awkwardly. The crow just plants a strong foot on it and can rip pieces off with ease. Probably Pigeon Eater could use his foot, which is by no means weak, but the idea simply hasn't occurred to him.Maybe he should watch a crow at work.

The Grey Heron at the island that has been seen lying down on one of the wire baskets at the island can stand up, and in fact I saw it flying in. Its behaviour had been a bit worrying, but it seems to be absolutely OK.

Great Crested Grebes have been hanging around the collapsed willow next to the bridge, but they show absolutely no sign of wanting to nest.

Nor do the ones on the Serpentine. It would be a sad year without a sight of their stripy chicks. But there is still time, as they usually start late.

Two of the Red-Crested Pochard drakes were also under the bridge. There hasn't been a female here at any time this year. These aren't migrants; they fly in from the other London parks more or less at random. Some years ago a pair nested near Peter Pan and successfully raised to young, the only time as far as I know that they have ever bred in the park.

The newest Coot chicks in the Italian Garden are down from six to four, and surprisingly the older family on the pool seem to have lost one of the eight. It looks as if they've been fighting.

The undersized Mandarin duckling on the Round Pond may be the runt of the brood, but it attracted cries of admiration from a watching child.

The Mallard family sprawled on the edge.

A Mute Swan with pink feet rather than black is known as a 'Polish' swan. 'Polish' cygnets are white rather than the normal grey. The gene for this mutation is recessive and sex-linked, so that usually only females have the 'Polish' appearance, and males with the gene are normal-looking. Only if a male swan gets the gene from both parents will he have pink feet. The name dates from the early 19th century when swans were still eaten, and swans were imported from the Baltic region to increase stocks. Some of these were found to have the mutation.

This swan on the Round Pond is regrowing her flight feathers after moulting, and you can see the emerging primaries.

A Greylag Goose on the Serpentine, one of the regular visitors that come to moult in June, has an unusual amount of white on its face, and several times has been misreported as a White-Fronted Goose.

Four pictures taken by Ahmet Amerikali at Rainham Marshes show the difficulty of identifying birds that don't look like their picture in the book. This is a Whitethroat, but its throat isn't particularly white. I think from its vague soft markings that it's a young one.

This Whitethroat has much bolder markings, but the yellow edges of its bill seem to show that it too is a young bird.

This is clearly a female Linnet, lacking the pink front of the male.

But this one has unusually strong markings on its back for a Linnet. There are finches with stronger markings than Linnets, such as Redpolls, but they all have smaller bills so I think this has to be a Linnet. However, I may be wrong about any or all of these.

Another slightly uncertain identification: a Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonfly on the railings in the Dell. I think this is a female that has lost its early yellow and black markings and gone a dull colour.

Anyway, there is no doubt about this male Emperor dragonfly in a fine shot by Ahmet.

There are lots of Comma butterflies all round the park. This one was in the Dell.

The spiky flowers in the eryngium patch near the Lido were crowded with Honeybees and Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.

Young Great Spotted Woodpecker

A young Great Spotted Woodpecker beside the Long Water fluttered its wings and looked up appealingly ...

... at its father higher in the tree.

A pair of Magpies perched together in the next tree.

There was a family of Blue Tits checking another tree for insects. This is one of the young ones.

A Pied Wagtail collected insects for its nestlings on the edge of the Round Pond ...

... and flew off, going quite a distance to the southeast and disapopearing near the Queen's Temple. It might have a nest in the old stonework, though they also nest in tree holes and other crevices.

Several Black-Headed Gulls have already returned to the pond from their breeding grounds.

The Mandarin family were resting on the edge when a feral child rushed at them. They gradually recovered from the shock and settled down again.

The Mallard family continued their endless circling.

For several days a flock of Canada Geese has been building up on the Long Water. I was just on the other of the bridge when I saw them coming through in a great hurry. It was the dominant male Mute Swan who owns the Long Water, and had tired of their presence and decided to get rid of them.

One of them consoled itself by eating a fallen plum from a tree at the Triangle.

Another was eating a piece of apple someone had given it ...

... but carelessly dropped it into the water, and it was snatched by a young Herring Gull.

The bindweed so hated by the park management is very popular with insects. Honeybees climbed out of the flowers ...

... and a Batman Hoverfly rested on a leaf.

The supposed Batman logo on the thorax of this one, just behind the head, is very indistinct. But the pattern is a reminder that in pre-Batman times it was known as the Death's Head Hoverfly, and if you really stretch your imagination you can see that the narkinjg on the whole thorax has a faint resemblance to a black skull.

Ahmet Amerikali was at Rainham Marshes, where he got pictures of a Sedge Warbler ...

... a Reed Bunting ...

... and a Linnet.

Lastly, a pleasing shot sent from Málaga by Emilio Pacios: two young House Martins looking out from their nest.

We can't see the House Martin nests near the park, on the Kuwaiti embassy, because they're hidden in recesses in the ornate Victoria stucco cornice. It was sad to hear that the Regent's Park colony, on Rossmore House at the southwest corner of the park, had been wiped out by builders. It was much larger than the one on the embassy and the nests were in full view from the street.

The Robins' truce

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was back on view in the top of the chestnut tree, though you couldn't get an unobstructed view of her. She is not worried by being photographed, unlike her mate who has to be ambushed and hastily snapped before he flies off.

The Robin pairs in the Flower Walk ...

... and at Mount Gate are in a short peaceful period when they have brought up their young and are still on good terms with each other. Soon the pairs will split up and each bird will defend a private territory, fighting its mate if it intrudes. 

Two interesting pictures from Ahmet Amerikali. One of the Goldcrest parents from the yew tree in the Dell arrived with a load of insects for its young.

A Reed Warbler on the patch of scrubby ground between the Dell and the reed bed at the southeast corner of the Serpentine, which is referred to as the Caroline enclosure because it contains a monument to Queen Caroline, consort of George II, for whom the Serpentine was created by damming the Westbourne river.

A young Carrion Crow on Rotten Row begged its parent for a share of a bit of bread. Surprisingly, it got its way. Most of the crows have stopped feeding their offspring.

A Magpie pestered a fox on the lawn by the Henry Moore sculpture, annoying it so much that it left.

Pigeon Eater was prowling near the Dell restaurant in his hunting stance, with head lowered and ready to rush at any inattentive pigeon.

A female Great Crested Grebe was looking for fish lurking in the algae on the Serpentine. The algae on the surface are not just floating patches, they are the tops of a submerged forest, and this explains the grebe's fishing style, staying on the surface and peering down into gaps.

The Coot nesting on the chain by the island where the Cormorants stand left for a while, but has now decided that there is no threat from them and returned to the nest. I don't think there were or are any eggs.

Only three goslings are left of the Egyptian Goose family at the southeast corner of the Serpentine, but they frolicked around gaily ignorant of the danger from the many Herring Gulls.

The young Mallards on the Round Pond simply ignore the irritable Mute Swans pecking at them.

The Mandarin ducklings were wandering all over the pond and there was no chance of a group shot. Here is the mother with the largest duckling, now almost as big as her ...

... and with the smallest, still tiny and growing slowly, but otherwise it seems in good health and is very active.

A Comma butterfly sunned itself on a bindweed leaf near the Italian Garden. When it folds its wings you can see the white comma-shaped mark on the underside that gives the butterfly its name.

In the Rose Garden a Colletes bee, which I thought was an Ivy Bee C. hederae, fed on an oxeye daisy. But it was a long way from any ivy, and see Conehead 54's comment below

After the first flush of Hairy-Footed Flower Bees I hadn't seen one for some time, but today there was what looked rather like a female in the lavender patch. Update: Duncan Campbell thinks it isn't black enough to be a Hairy-Footed Flower Bee. But I have side views of it showing very hairy feet. The colour suggests an Ashy Mining Bee, Andrena cineraria, but it's too squat for that. Again, see Conehead 54's comment below. 

Scolding Magpies

A Wren regarded the camera gravely from a tree down the hill from the Round Pond.

Another was scolding a Magpie that had come near its nest when it was trying to bring food to its young. I had to film this while a police helicopter was clattering overhead and select the least noisy bits. The three Eurocopter EC 145s used by the Metropolitan Police must be the loudest for their size of any helicopter, and I wonder whether they were chosen deliberately for that reason to strike terror into the public.

A Robin near the Henry Moore sculpture was also scolding a Magpie that had come too close to its nest.

The familiar old male Chaffinch came to be fed in the chestnut tree by the Serpentine Gallery while I was unsuccessfully trying to find a Little Owl.

A Blackbird was sunbathing near Mount Gate, but I disturbed it and only got a shot as it stood up.

A Pied Wagtail high-stepped through the parched grass by the Round Pond.

A young Magpie near the Dell has already learnt how to shell a peanut.

Ahmet Amerikali got good pictures of a Reed Warbler near the Lido ...

... a female Blackcap near Peter Pan ...

... and a Mistle Thrush in the same place, eating a bird cherry beside a web spun by a moth. There are very few Mistle Thrushes in the park, though it has been a bumper year for Song Thrushes.  

The fountain pool in the Italian Garden where a Coot had already nested and brought up eight chicks now has another new brood in it with six chicks. You can see the two sets of young together, and the parents weren't fighting when I was there. The four other large pools have also had Coot chicks hatched in them, so this is the fifth family this year. It's a very good place, free from pike and hardly visited by gulls, and the Coots know it. 

The Coot nesting on the gravel strip in the Round Pond is still there ...

... but a few yards along the strip a Lesser Black-Backed Gull was looking at the nest hungrily.

The two larger Mandarin ducklings were staying fairly close to their mother, but the little one had wandered off by itself again. It's amazing that it has survived so long.

The Mallard ducklings were eating algae, watched by their mother. She looks proud and has every reason to be.

The four new Egyptian goslings were resting on the edge of the Serpentine at Fisherman's Keep, guarded closely by their parents because this area is full of Herring Gulls.

The summer concerts are about to start in Hyde Park, and it looks as if there has been another attempt to re-form T. Rex.

Yesterday I mentioned the attempt to eradicate bindweed in the Flower Walk. The battle is already lost.

As Horace wrote, Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret -- You can drive out Nature with a fork, but she'll come racing back.