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).