As suspected, there is a Great Crested Grebes' nest on the Long Water in addition to the three on the Serpentine. It's in the collapsed willow by the bridge and can only be seen across the lake, from the semicircular viewing area at the other end of the bridge.
You can't see it from the near shore. This young Grey Heron was standing on the same willow and you can see to the outer edge of the tree, but the grebes' nest is well to the right of this picture and there are branches in the way.
A heron was climbing along the fence of the Mute Swans' nesting island. Like Moorhens, herons enjoy climbing on things purely for fun.
On the Dell restaurant roof a two-year-old Lesser Black-Backed Gull insolently buzzed Pigeon Eater. Young gulls have no respect for their elders, or indeed for anything.
A Cormorant at the island had a furious washing session and jumped on to a post to dry itself.
The little Mandarin at the Round Pond really isn't little any more. It was drinking from a puddle of rainwater. All the birds prefer rainwater to the stuff that comes out of boreholes to fill the pond and the lake.
Almost all the several hundred Starlings in the park had descended on the Lido restaurant terrace to raid empty tables for scraps. They waited on the roof or passed the time bathing in the lake.
Otherwise there was nothing much to see in the way of small birds. Great Tits poured out of the bushes in the Flower Walk, but someone else was feeding them so I wasn't seriously mobbed. One stared impatiently from the corkscrew hazel bush.
One of the tatty Robins at Mount Gate came out to take pine nuts from the path.
There was no sign of Little Owl in Hyde Park but there was a pair of Stock Doves in the tree. These are a perpetual problem for Little Owls as they are rivals for nest holes.
A knot of Feral Pigeons at the Vista clustered around something, pecking at it. It turned out to be a rosette of common plantain. This can be eaten by humans too, both as young leaves raw in salads and as slightly older leaves cooked like spinach.
The clump of hemp agrimony in the Dell was full of insects as usual. No Tiger Moth today, but there were a Hornet Hoverfly ...
... a Batman hoverfly clearly displaying the mark that looks like a Batman logo ...
... a Tapered Drone Fly ...
... and a Common Carder bee.
A Red Admiral butterfly rested on a clump of hyssop in the Rose Garden.
Horse mushrooms are coming up near the Round Pond.
Park volunteers were out on Buck Hill scything the grass. They are all amateurs and my first thought was 'It's all jolly fun till someone loses a foot', but apparently they have received training in use use of this lethal thing and been strictly warned to stay a safe distance apart.
