More little Egyptians

The Egyptian Geese in the Italian Garden have produced eight goslings.

It's not a convenient place for a family. If they go down on to the lake below the goslings won't be able to get back. The mother had a look here and decided against it. She then wanted to move the family into one of the fountain pools, but the goslings couldn't jump high enough to get up the kerb. I put a log against it to give them something to step up from, but of course they didn't get the idea. If they do go in, they can get out by means of a duckboard which is already in the pool, but they have to get the idea of that too. I left them to sort the problem out themselves.

The single Egyptian gosling on the Serpentine sprawled awkwardly beside its mother. Their legs are too large to fold up comfortably, and they have to keep stretching them.

The single young Mute Swan has learnt the art of begging from its parents, and was trying its luck at the edge of the Dell restuarant terrace.

The Great Crested Grebe pair at the east end of the island are now looking after one chick each. This one got two fish within a minute.

Cormorants occupied almost all the posts all across the lake at the bridge.

It was just as crowded at the island. The only vacant post had a Herring Gull on it, which a Cormorant evicted.

A Grey Heron was preening in the nest at the west end of the island, but I'm sure they aren't going to make another attempt at breeding. It was just a convenient place to stand.

A heron landed on the edge of the Long Water, coming precisely to a stop as its feet entered the water with barely a splash. You can see that its wings are completely stalled and the turbulence is lifting the small feathers. 

A young Wood Pigeon in the Dell was eating the tiny berries of a Japanese Angelica tree,  Aralia elata, one of the many unusual species planted here. This is not the source of the candied angelica used in fruit cakes, which is the stem of a completely different umbelliferous plant, Angelica archangelica. It's traditional to finish these videos with the pigeon over-reaching and falling out of the tree, but the fruits were so conveniently placed that it was able to stay put.

There are only a few pure white Feral Pigeons in the park, as most of them have a dark tail and other patches. This one was at the Lido restaurant.

A Carrion Crow had a faceoff with a Coot. It was the crow that flew away.

Long-Tailed Tits worked down the Flower Walk.

The Robin by the Henry Moore sculpture collected several pine nuts from my hand.

The usual one at Mount Gate was waiting in an elder tree. 

I was filming a Red Admiral butterfly feeding on an ivy flower at the back of the Lido when a much rarer creature appeared in the bottom left corner of the picture: a Mexican Grass-Carrying Wasp, Isodontia mexicana, only the third I've seen in the park. It stayed just long enough for a brief view before flying away.