Sedge Warblers by the Italian Garden

A young Blue Tit, still grey rather than blue, hung upside down to look for caterpillars of the Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner moth that infests the conker trees in the park and makes brown patches on the leaves.

Long-Tailed Tits are equally happy upside down.

The pairs of Robins have now split up and both males and females are in full song. This one was on a dead oak branch at the back of the Queen's Temple.

This Robin in the bushes in Flower Walk. immaculate and not tattered by nesting, is probably the young one I photographed several times in the same place earlier this year, but now grown up and in adult plumage.

Ahmet Amerikali found a pair of Sedge Warblers under the edge of the Italian Garden. I only saw them dashing into the reeds, but he got a good picture. They are infrequent visitors to the park, much less common here than Reed Warblers.

He also got a fine shot of the elusive Wren in the Rose Garden, which you often see scuttling between the flower beds but seldom stops for long enough to photograph.

A pair of Magpies is often seen on a heap of felled branches in the shrubbery at the southeast corner of the bridge.

The Black-Headed Gull who owns the landing stage refused to budge when a much larger Lesser Black-Backed Gull invaded his territory. It was the larger gull that gave up and left.

Pigeon Eater was in his usual place by the Dell restaurant looking for his afternoon tea.

A young Grey Heron fished in the water lilies in the Italian Garden.

The male Great Crested Grebe from the east end of the island was looking after the three chicks while his mate went off fishing.

A young Moorhen took a rest from climbing in the willow by the bridge.

The Black Swan came over to collect some sunflower hearts.

I think there really is only one terrapin left on the Long Water. The most we ever had were five, four Red-Eared Sliders and a Yellow-Bellied Slider. Today you could see its head and there was no red streak showing, so it looks as if it's the latter that has survived.

We don't much want them on the lake, as they eat chicks. They were only here because their owners had dumnped them.

The patch of hemp agrimony in the Dell had attracted a Comma butterfly and a Speckled Wood.

Another Speckled Wood was well camouflaged in leaf litter near Peter Pan.

A clump of stonecrop in the Italian Garden had a very bleached Common Carder Bee ...

... and another of those tiny Buff-Tailed Bumblebees, no larger than the Common Carder. It's hard to believe that such different sized Buff-Tails are all the same species.

The grebe chicks ride out

The Great Crested Grebes at the east end of the Serpentine island have brought their three chicks out on to the open water for the first time. They were riding on their father's back while their mother went fishing. This time she didn't catch anything, but gave a chick a feather as a consolation prize.

The grebes under the balcony of the Dell restaurant find the old Coot nest that have taken over uncomfortably high. Parents have to climb on to the nest to feed the chicks.

The grebe nesting under the willow at the bridge was sitting sideways on, and you can see from the low position of his wings that the chicks haven't hatched yet.

I had lost sight of the single Egyptian gosling on the Serpentine and thought it had been eaten by a gull, but found it again today eating well and now considerably larger.

Pigeon Eater was still being harassed by his whining youngster on the Dell restaurant roof. You'd think by now it would have realised that its begging is in vain.

How can you tell it's Pigeon Eater when you can't see his bright yellow legs? By his unique eyes with a ring of black dots on the yellow iris.

Young Wood Pigeons don't have a white neck ring and it takes some time for their dark eyes to change to adult colour with off-white irises, so from some angles you can mistake one for a Stock Dove.

Apart from being smaller, Stock Doves have two black wing bars. They are rather faint on this one, but perfectly visible.

A Robin perched on a metal pole in the Dell which is part of the watering system for the shrubs.

A Wren was scolding a couple of Magpies at the southeast corner of the bridge.

A Great Tit looked out from a hawthorn twig near the Steiner bench ...

... or at least where the bench used to be. It's been replaced at least once but the rather flimsy structure has collapsed again. Let's hope the Anthroposophists will stump up for a new one.

Both the male Chaffinches were waiting by the corkscrew hazel in the Flower Walk. This is the younger one. They seemed quite comfortable togther, and perhaps they are father and son.

A Blue-Tailed Damselfly rested on the railings of the Dell.

A Common Carder Bee browsed on a buddleia flower. Their orginal bright ginger has now faded to a dark blond.

A patch of Black-Eyed Susan in the Flower Walk was full of Honeybees.

In the Rose Garden, a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee looked lost in the middle of an enormous dark sunflower ...

... and a Common Drone Fly worked over a Michaelmas daisy. Composite flowers with many florets detain insects for some time, making them easy to photograph.

A clump of stonecrop had a European Beewolf on it. This ferocious predator of bees has an oddly mild scientific name, Philanthus ('flower lover') triangulum (referring to the pattern on its abdomen).

More grebe news

More good news from the Great Crested Grebes: Jon Ferguson saw a parent near the boathouse with two chicks. His picture shows one of them. This is the pair that nested halfway along the island, hatched chicks, and disappeared for several days so that we were worried about them.

The nest under the Dell restaurant balcony also has two chicks, which can be indistinctly seen here under the parent's right wing.

But there are also three unhatched eggs. It's not clear yet whether any of these will hatch.

One of the three chicks at the east end of the island took a small fish.

At the nest under the willow the sitting grebe's mate is constantly hanging around, which is probably a sign that the eggs are about to hatch.

Two very small Coot chicks have appeared from a nest in the bushes east of the Lido.

A Mute Swan on the Serpentine had a vigorous washing session and finished it off with a powerful flap.

An Egyptian Goose was also making a splash.

There are two black (or at least very dark brown) and white Mallard drakes. One was at the Dell restaurant where I saw it earlier ...

... and the other was on the willow by the bridge.

We have had dark Mallards on the lake for years but these two are definitely darker. Quite likely they are siblings.

You could tell that Pigeon Eater wasn't on his territory, as a pack of Herring Gulls was right in the middle of it squabbling about a bit of food.

Pigeon Eater was visiting the Long Water. He stood on a post at Peter Pan while his offspring alternately whined at him and played with a twig.

Most of the Robins are singing tentatively now, but this one on the edge of the Flower Walk was in full song.

A Wren could be glimpsed jumping around in the trees by the bridge.

Behind the Queen's Temple, a Speckled Wood butterfly on a leaf gave a head-on view. You can only see one of its eyes because its upturned proboscis hides the other.

In the next tree there was a female Common Blue damselfly. Females vary in colour and this was a green one.

There is a clump of exotic trees between the Dell and the Rose Garden. This is a Goldenrain tree, Koelreuteria paniculata, an East Asian species, now covered with papery fruit.

Grebe chicks at the Dell restaurant

Another Great Crested Grebe nest has hatched out, this time the one under the Dell restaurant balcony. One chick was visible, but there are likely to be more. A parent bringing a feather had difficulty reaching the chick, as the nest, which is a reused Coot nest, is much higher than grebes are used to.

At the island, two of the three chicks reached out to be fed.

There's no sign of hatching yet at the nest in the willow by the bridge.

On the other side of the bridge the Coots persisted in occupying their nest, despite its having failed again and again.

A Moorhen at the Vista was finding small white larvae and giving them to a chick.

The Mute Swan family were also here, none the worse for having eaten toxic blue-green algae yesterday.

The Black Swan was near the Lido, preening his fine ruffles.

The Grey Heron that fishes from the charging platform for the electric boats was having a rest. They do look odd lying down.

The bacterial scum on the small waterfall in the Dell has washed away, and the usual young heron was back looking for fish.

Mrs Pigeon Eater was having a rare quiet moment while her noisy offspring was busy preening.

A Wood Pigeon wa eating the fruit off lords and ladies plants in the Dell, which it did by jumping on the stems to bend them over to the ground. All parts of the plant are poisonous but Wood Pigeons seem to have a high resistance to plant toxins.

In checking the plant I found that its root was once baked, ground and used as thickener like arrowroot. The heat destroyed the toxin but a bitter tate remained, so it was only a famine food. The powder was also used as a starch for ruffs, but found to cause skin blistering.

Jackdaws can turn up anywhere in the park, but they all know me and expect peanuts. This one was on the lawn between the Dell and the Rose Garden.

A Carrion Crow drank at the Huntress fountain in the Rose Garden. The fountain has stopped working yet again -- it never runs for more than a few weeks -- but the bowl fills with rainwater and is a valuable resource for the birds at the east end of the park.

I've never seen a duck on the duckboards in the Italian Garden fountains, but they provide a place for Feral Pigeons to bathe and socialise.

It's been some time since I saw a Coal Tit at Mount Gate, but one turned up today ...

... along with the usual tatty Robin.

A Tree Bumblebee fed on a Michaelmas daisy in the Rose Garden.

There was a Hornet Hoverfly on the hemp agrimony in the Dell.