Tufted ducklings

A Tufted Duck on the Long Water under the Italian Garden has brought out ten ducklings.

The smallest Mandarin duckling on the Round Pond had wandered right away from the family and was eating algae on the far side of the water. Fortunately its mother came looking for it.

There is an odd Greylag Goose at the pond with a white face. It looks like a wild bird and not one of the domesticated white-patched West of England Geese that sometimes show up in the park.

Black-Headed Gulls are now returning from their breeding grounds in large numbers, bringing their brown young with them.They are still staying in the tight flocks they formed to migrate. There are now two of these groups on the pond.

A Female Common Pochard on the Long Water spun as she turned sideways to preen.

The Great Crested Grebes nesting on the chain at the Serpentine island were maintaining the nest, something that has to be done constantly as the sloppy mass subsides into the water.

The female stood up, showing that she has laid at least two eggs.

I warned the boat hire people to be cautious around this dangerously sited nest. Let's hope they take some notice.

A Pied Wagtail ran up the edge of the Serpentine.

The male Peregrine was on the tower eating a pigeon. He was well back from the edge and could only be seen from a distance when he looked up from his meal.

A young Magpie at the Triangle was looking as sweet and innocent as possible to tout some food off people on a bench.

A Starling accepted a grape on the railings beside the Long Water.

Stock Doves fought in an old chestnut tree at the leaf yard.

A young Robin came out on a bush in the Flower Walk.

One of the pair at Mount Gate was under a lime tree, looking tattered from nesting and raising young. It ate several pine nuts.

The Great Tits in the Rose Garden haven't been much seen for a while, but today a pair came out in their usual small hawthorn tree to take pine nuts.

A teasel in the flower bed below attracted a Red Admiral butterfly, a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee and a Vestal Cuckoo Bee.

A Brimstone butterfly rested on a leaf in the Flower Walk.

A Common Carder bee fed on a Great Willowherb that had seeded itself beside the Long Water.