Pigeon Eater's media career

A Long-Tailed Tit paused for a few seconds on a twig near the Buck Hill shelter. There is a nest here somewhere in the brambles but the young birds haven't emerged yet.

A Starling had seized a bit of bread from someone feeding the geese at the Vista.

Birds can survive having some bread in their diet, though it is mostly empty calories and an unadulterated diet of it is seriously bad for them -- and there have been cases of swans choking after eating large amounts of pappy white bread. Set against this is the fact that most of the Mute Swans on the overcrowded lake are underweight from a lack of healthy natural nutrition, so that feeding them up can be helpful.

A Robin sang on the fence surrounding the noisy construction site at the Serpentine Gallery. This year we are getting two 'pavilions', one of which is a huge structure on massive concrete foundations. The architects commissioned by the gallery seldom have any idea of what a temporary building is, intended only as a usable café lasting a few months, and instead are making the usual cumbersome personal statements.

A fine picture by Ahmet Amerikali of the male Reed Warbler under the Italian Garden. A female has also been visible and there is certainly a nest in here somewhere.

A Pied Wagtail explored the non-slip rubber matting on the Lido jetty. This is full of insects feeding on the Egyptian Goose droppings that lodge in the grooves of the matting, and is much visited by wagtails.

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

Pigeon Eater is being filmed by a team from the American Public Broadcasting Service for the second year in a row. They tell me that they already have good video of him in action. This is certainly the most famous gull in the world, and he struts and preens as if he knew it.

The three Grey Heron chicks had all climbed out of their nest, and this picture of two of them is from a couple of days ago. We have never had four nests in one season before, at least not in my time. This is a growing heronry, so far unaffected by the Egyptian Goose invasion that is causing the bigger one in Regent's Park to decline.

A heron was fishing by a clump of purple loosestrife in the Italian Garden fountains.

This tough plant which grows well in wet places is spreading through the park after it was deliberately planted in the fountains here in 2011, but on the spot the Coots are chewing it to shreds and it is disappearing. Now that the tubular frames with netting have been removed from around the clumps of irises, the Coots are wrecking these too. Old photographs of the Italian Garden show clumps of plants thriving in the pools, but they were taken before the mistaken decision to introduce Coots into St James's Park in the early 1920s, since when they have quickly colonised Central London at the expense of the mild Moorhens.

A male Great Crested Grebe was fishing by the Triangle. Probably this pair will soon choose a nest site in the trees on the other side of the bridge, where there are several suitable places.

Coots don't need suitable places. There is a new nest on a single projecting branch of the big fallen poplar in the Long Water.

It has become harder and harder to see the Mute Swan nesting in the reeds by the Serpentine outflow, but she has been sitting for a month and should soon have some cygnets. However, these will be just as invisible until she brings them out on to the lake.

Sean Gillespie found a spectacular insect I have never seen in my life, a Lime Hawk Moth. It looks like a tiny Vulcan bomber in its RAF camouflage.

They are named because they like lime trees, not because some of them are lime green. Others shade more towards pink.

A Honeybee in the Rose Garden needed all six legs to climb over a spiky allium flower.

Ahnother was having a much easier time in an orange rose, one of the few double roses here that is open enough for them to get in.

The display of flowers here is now at its best.

A puzzling deposit of dense white fluff on the east side of the Long Water. This is often produced by Black Poplars, but I couldn't see one anywhere near. The local plants in the undergrowth are common bramble, Himalayan Blackberry, bindweed and Snowberry -- which is so named for its white berries, not because it produces white fluff.

White Greylag

A nearly white Greylag Goose has arrived on the Serpentine. It's a bird we've seen in recent years, one of the geese that come to the park to moult in June on the safety of a large lake. This year it has come unusually early.

Safety is relative, of course, and the Serpentine is a very dangerous place for goslings small enough to be snatched by Herring Gulls and Carrion Crows. But the single Greylag gosling has survived another day ...

... and so have the remaining three little Egyptians.

The Mute cygnets on the Long Water were well guarded as they went with their parents to the gravel strip.

The swans 4FYY and 4FUE were still sitting pointlessly behind the fence at the edge of the lake. It looks as if, having stolen the nest site from the other pair 4GIA and 4DTI, they aren't going to use it.

A party of Mallard drakes relaxed on the path. There wasn't a female in sight, which would have caused them to start chasing her and fighting each other.

A Great Crested Grebe had difficulty swallowing a large ruffe it has caught, but managed in the end.

Moorhens don't have webbed feet, and swim with a curious circular action as if they were riding an invisible bicycle. It works quite well.

Yet another Coot nest has appeared in a silly place on the open edge of the Serpentine.

A Starling chick looked out of the nest hole in the plane tree by the boathouses.

One of the Robins at Mount Gate came out to collect pine nuts for the chicks ...

... and a Great Tit ate its handout on a branch.

The Little Owl at the Round Pond looked down from her lime tree.

It was a good day for insects, with the first Common Blue damselfly I've seen this year.

There were also some Blue-Tailed damselflies at the back of the Lido, but they wouldn't stop to be photographed.

A Common Blue butterfly was there too, resting on a blade of grass.

A hastily snatched shot of a Red-Tailed Bumblebee in the Rose Garden. It flew off before I could get a better one.

Offerings under the Peter Pan statue, probably to Liam Payne rather than the fictional Peter, and about to be snatched by a passing whippet. I shall never understand humans.

Heron chicks getting restless

The Grey Heron chicks in the fourth nest were already feeling the urge to wander, and fidgeting in the nest. The third one had climbed out and can be glimpsed for a moment in the leaves to the right.

The heron in the west nest is still standing there day after day. Although it seems to have a mate, it seems less and less likely that they're going to nest.

More Cormorants have arrived, and were ranged on the posts below.

A heron was fishing by the barrier around the Mute Swans' nest site east of the Lido. A Carrion Crow on the fence couldn't resist attacking it. It's not clear why herons and crows are such inveterate enemies.

Great Crested Grebes and Coots are also perennially hostile. A pair of Coots annoyed the grebes at the east end of the island and got chased off.

The grebes congratulated each other on their success.

The Coots' nest by the bridge has grown into a tall structure. One parent turned over the eggs to keep them warmed, the other arrived with a leaf. Coots share nest duties, so you can't tell which is which.

The nest at the corner of the reed bed by the Serpentine outflow has survived another day without being hit by a pedalo.

The Mute Swans on the Long Water had taken their seven new cygnets on to the gravel strip, safe from lurking pike of which there are several around their nesting island.

The Greylag Geese on the south side of the Serpentine still have their last surviving gosling ...

... but the Egyptians have lost one more and are down to three.

The Gadwall drakes are going into eclipse but the females remain as neat as ever.

The female Little Owl at the Round Pond was calling in the lime tree, but she was very hard to find deep in the leaves.

There wasn't much to see in the way of small songbirds, but the reliable Robin in the Rose Garden turned up for some pine nuts.

A Magpie seized a piece of leftover bacon at the Lido restaurant.

When it had gone, the Starlings moved in on the chips, one of their favourite foods.

A pair of Feral Pigeons had a tender moment.

 A Honeybee browsed on some fragrant blossom at Mount Gate. I had to look the plant up: it's a Beautybush, Kolkwitzia amabilis.

Regular customers in the Rose Garden

Now that insects are plentiful the small birds are mostly uninterested in the pine nuts on offer. Exceptions are the tatty Blue Tit in the Rose Garden, who seems to be in poor health and may not be hunting well ...

... and the Robin who is busy feeding his mate on the nest -- I don't think they have chicks yet, as these would be audible.

The Robins by the Henry Moore sculpture certainly have chicks in a nest deep in the bushes, as they are both constantly out collecting insects for them.  One of them took time off to sing on a branch.

A Wren was singing by the Speke obelisk.

A Starling shone in the sunlight on the knob of an umbrella at the Lido restuarant.

The female Little Owl was on the usual high branch of the lime tree. Her mate was lower in the tree, only just visible and impossible to photograph.

One of the three Grey Heron chicks on the island looked out of the nest. The other too were farther back in the nest, but they were moving around and you couldn't see all of them at the same time.

A young heron, probably from this year's first nest, was fishing almost out its depth on the Long Water. Sometimes they lose their footing and float high in the water. They can swim, but slowly and clumsily.

A Coots' nest by a reed bed by the Serpentine was commandeered a fishing station by another heron, which was tough luck on the Coots.

It wouldn't have bothered the Coots in the Italian Garden, which have just built a third nest for their large family.

A Coot at the Peter Pan waterfront pulled up algae for one of its four chicks. A pair of Cetti's Warblers is nesting nearby, and you can hear the dramatic song of the male at the beginning of the video.

A pair of Great Crested Grebes displayed near the bridge. There has been no recent attempt at nesting but they will probably start soon, as the new young fish should now be big enough to feed the chicks.

The Mute Swans on the Long Water took their seven new cygnets on an outing.

Another brood of four Egyptian goslings has come out on the south shore of the Serpentine. There were other Egyptians nearby, which the parents were warning off noisily.

The Egyptian survivor was on the shore near the island. It stretched a wing, showing well developed primaries.

The Greylags on the Serpentine still have one gosling, which they were sheperding carefully down the lake.

There is just one Red-Crested Pochard drake on the Long Water, unusual as they are quite social ducks.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee visited a single pink rose in the Rose Garden. Most of the highly cultivated roses here are tight double blooms which bees can't get into.