Indian summer

Warm weather has returned, at least for a few days. A Wood Pigeon sunbathed in the Flower Walk ...

... and a Greylag Goose came to join some Egyptians in the shade of a tree.

A Robin looked out nervously from a bush in the Rose Garden. The small birds here aren't fed by many people and haven't got into the habit ...

... while the tatty Robin at Mount Gate has no such inhibitions.

A young Herring Gull played with a feather ...

... and a Black-Headed Gull had a leaf. Adults play with toys too, though not as much as young gulls.

The Great Crested Grebe chicks at the west end of the island dived beside their parents. Soon they will start following them underwater when they are fishing, and in this way will learn the hunting skills that very grebe needs.

The single large chick is no longer allowed to ride on its parent's back, and has to do its own swimming now. It was having a preen.

A Cormorant fished around the Coot nest at the bridge, driving away the Coot, and then moved on to annoy the Mute Swan family.

The lone cygnet was with both its parents. Evidently they had seen the killer swan and his family on the Serpentine side of the bridge, and moved in to protect it.

The single Coot chick was on the edge eating algae.

A Common Wasp had killed a bee on a mimosa leaf in the Dell. The victim was too battered to tell what its species was.

The hemp agrimony in the Dell has almost stopped flowering but there was enough to attract a Green-Veined White butterfly, adding to the remarkable number of species that have visited this plant.

There are plenty of other flowers to feed on. The stonecrop in the Rose Garden is in full bloom and was full of Buff-Tailed Bumblebees ...

... and there were Common Carders on the Michaelmas daisies.

Ahmet Amerikali was in Southwark Park, where he found a Goldcrest in a cedar ...

... a young Grey Wagtail in a puddle ...

... and a Little Grebe swimming through a patch of duckweed.