The Little Owls find a home

It rained in the morning, and when I first visited the Little Owls at the Round Pond they were nowhere to be seen. This was good, because it meant they weren't out in the rain with nowhere to go. I came back in the afternoon and the female owl called (I can almost believe she was trying to attract my attention) from a nearby lime tree where there is a hole which they have occasionally used in past years. There wasn't a good view, but it was a great relief to be sure that they weren't homeless. Let's hope the hole is suitable as a nest as well as a shelter.

The Green Woodpecker on Buck Hill has been calling constantly for days. It can be hard to find in the new leaves, but Theodore found himself unexpectedly close to the normally very shy bird and took this picture.

I found him near the top of the tree, pecking at a branch and laughing scornfully.

A Blackcap sang at the foot of the hill near the Steiner bench.

A Long-Tailed Tit paused in the variegated holly tree on the other side of the lake.

A Blue Tit examined a magnolia blossom in the Flower Walk.

A Coal Tit perched by hawthorn flower buds in the Rose Garden.

Joan Chatterley found a Robin carrying a spider to its nest near the Speke obelisk.

Pigeon Eater and his mate were displaying again. It looks as if they are going to nest, and I suspect that the site is the Dell restaurant roof, but there's no way of seeing this from the ground.

A Coot has built a nest under the restaurant balcony. This place has been used in past years. It's in two feet of water and the Coots have amassed a substantial heap of waterlogged branches to support the nest, some of these so large that you would have thought it impossible for a Coot to move them.

A Great Crested Grebe was fishing around the wire baskets under the bridge. These are filled with twigs and serve as a fish hatchery. There should already be some tiny young fish here.

Mute Swans can't stop tearing down the plants around their nests, although it would be an advantage to have some cover. When the pair first occupied the nesting island it was covered with waist-high weeds. On the edge of the island a Coot was looking after some new chicks. The aggressive swans consider Coots not worth bothering with, and leave them alone.

The Egyptian Geese which had sixteen goslings on the Serpentine are now down to their last two. One had rashly wandered along the edge of the lake and was hurrying back to its mother.

The spirit of adventure is fatal for goslings and ducklings. The Egyptian gosling on the other side of the lake has survived because it's a meek little conformist that stays with its mother.

The Mandarin drake by the Henry Moore sculpture was alone on the grass. It looks as if his mate is now nesting in a tree hole.

The Gadwall–Mallard trio rested on the kerb of a pool in the Italian Garden.

Blue bugleweed in the Rose Garden attracted a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee ...

... and a male Hairy-Footed Flower Bee.

Joan found a spectacular Orange Tip butterfly in the Flower Walk.