Little Owls in love

The Little Owl pair at the Round Pond were side by side in their lime tree, calling affectionately and preening each other.

Now that the leaves are fully out on most of the trees it's getting harder to photograph small songbirds, and mostly you just hear them.  A couple of Robins were in sight, one in the bushes by Peter Pan ...

... and the other on the pergola in the Rose Garden.

An unsuccessful attempt to get a picture of a Blue Tit in the pink-flowered hawthorn in the Rose Garden accidentally captured a Dark-Edged Bee Fly feeding in the blossom.

A Wood Pigeon was eating the flowers on a hawthorn beside the Long Water.

A Starling ate an apple that someone had put out for the Rose-Ringed Parakeets. In fact the parakeets don't much like Granny Smith apples and greatly prefer red varieties, but Starlings aren't fussy.

A Pied Wagtail used the jetty at the Lido as a hunting station.

A Cormorant on a branch of the big fallen poplar in the Long Water idly played with a twig. It wasn't displaying to another Cormorant, it was just amusing itself.

One of the young Grey Herons preened farther up in the tree. This looks like one of the three from the second nest, but it's getting hard to tell the difference in the ages of the first two broods. The third set haven't come down from their tree yet, though they're now climbing all over it.

The Great Crested Grebe pair at the east end of the island are guarding their nest site in a bush, and were displaying under the rowing boats moored in front of it. They have sensibly not started nesting yet: the longer they wait, the more small fish there will be to feed to the chicks.

The Coot nesting on a chain nearby was snapping in the air. There are so many midges that it can catch them from a sitting position as they go by.

It was all aboard at the nest in the Italian Garden. The eight chicks are doing well. It's the best nest site in the park, sheltered by the tall iris leaves in a place seldom visited by Herring Gulls.

Things are sadly different on the Serpentine, which is thronged with gulls standing on the moored boats. The pair at the boathouse are down to their last gosling ...

... and there are only three left at the boat hire platform, though here their parents had the sense to keep them in the shelter of the platform.

The Mallard ducklings were here too. I couldn't see how many have survived as they were popping in and out of the shadows. Two of them are dark and if they were to survive (a very big if) they would probably grow into the dark brown adults of which we have several on the lake.

The Gadwall drake and Mallard female were cruising together in the Italian Garden, with the rejected Mallard drake hanging around sadly behind them.

The lone Mandarin drake trotted through the algae on the edge of the Serpentine. I haven't seen any other Mandarins for a few days now, but it does seem that the female is nesting beside the Long Water.

The Mute Swans nesting on the bank at the Lido had come down from their nest and were out on the water side by side, mirroring each other's actions in their courtship display.