Calamity at the Round Pond

Disaster has struck the dead tree where the Little Owls at the Round Pond have nested for several years. The tinder-dry dead wood caught fire, perhaps from a cigarette end setting light to the crumbled fragments underneath, and it is completely burnt out. The fire brigade arrived to put out the blaze, but the tree is beyond saving.

The female owl was in the tree but escaped, and I saw her later in another tree. I couldn't get closer for a better picture because the area was under the spray from the fire hoses.

We shall have to see where the owls go now. But this is important: please, if you discover where they have settled, don't put a comment here. Write to me privately at the email address in the right column of the web version of the blog. We don't want a lot of people turning up and disturbing them.

I finally managed to get a reasonable picture of a Blackcap singing near Peter Pan. The Sunday crowds were making too much noise for a video to be recorded.

A pair of Long-Tailed Tits were working through the next tree.

A Starling shone in the sunlight and chattered mildly.

The Japanese crabapple tree in the Rose Garden is a mass of pink blossom. A Blackbird perched in the top ...

... and a Great Tit came out for a pine nut.

The Robins on the north side of the Rose Garden have still not caught up with the pair in the middle, and remain distant. One sang in a tree ...

... and the other was in the flower bed underneath.

There was another sight of the Goldcrest at the Serpentine Lodge, this time just outside the garden -- you can see the wooden fence in the background.

A Great Spotted Woodpecker on the Parade Ground was drumming in a distant tree, hard to see among the twigs.

Pigeon Eater, on the right here, rested with his mate on the Dell restaurant roof.

The Grey Heron in the new nest stood up. The structure really does look undersized and unstable. 

One occupant of the west nest flew in. I don't think this vague pair are going to start nesting any time soon, if at all.

A Moorhen took it easy in the reed bed at the Serpentine outflow.

Inevitably the Egyptian Geese at the Triangle have lost more and are down to five.

The pair at the boat hire platform have lost their last one.

The trio of a Gadwall drake, a female Mallard and a Mallard drake in the Italian Garden fountains has seemed reasonably harmonious till now. The female prefers the Gadwall and stays beside him. But spring and surging hormones have affected the Mallard drake, and today he attacked his rival. The Gadwall dodged the attack, and settled down with the female to preen and soothe their ruffled feelings.