Young birds becoming independent

The young songbirds are rapidly becoming independent. Three young Great Tits at the southwest corner of the bridge were foraging for themselves, and all came to my hand in quick succession to collect pine nuts.

The young Starlings at the Lido restaurant are also now doing their own scavenging. On a hot afternoon one was sunbathing on a table.

A young Carrion Crow nagged at a parent to feed it. The parent thought it was old enough to find its own food, and ignored it.

An adult was sifting through the debris left by some filthy picnickers.

A Wren scolded a Magpie in the bushes near the Buck Hill shelter.

Ahmet Amerikali got a picture of a Reed Warbler near the Lido carrying insects for the chicks. They're almost impossible to see here now unless they come up in a tree.

He's also keeping an eye on the Firecrests in Battersea Park.

The male Peregrine was on the tower again, alone. It's really looking as if his new mate has given him the push.

I couldn't see a Little Owl, but the owlet at the Serpentine Gallery was calling from somewhere invisible. The ancient chestnut tree is completely hollow and has a large hole in its broken top, and I think it must have been in there.

It's been unclear whether there is a fifth Grey Heron nest on the island, since the site in a treetop is invisible from the ground. But today the chicks, which are now quite large, were bouncing about begging for food and they could be seen intermittently through the leaves. (I wish people wouldn't play loud music in the park. The powerful and easily portable Bluetooth speaker is a curse of our time.)

Two of the three young herons from the fourth nest were down on the wire baskets at the edge of the island.

The six Mallard ducklings on the Round Pond boldly barged their way through a crowd of swans, with their mother pecking swans to shove them aside.

The smallest Mandarin duckling had strayed away again and was eating algae off a buoy.

Four Red-Crested Pochard drakes preen in the edge of the Serpentine. They are beginning to lose their bright breeding plumage and go into eclipse, but still have their silly ginger bouffant hairstyles.

I happened to be crossing London Bridge and saw two families of Greylags going upriver. There's a little gravel beach where the geese stand at low tide. It seems remarkable that they can breed on a busy tidal river with a fast current but not in the park.

There are lots of dragonflies and damselflies. This Emperor dragonfly...

... Black-Tailed Skimmer ...

... and Common Blue damselfly were perched within a couple of feet of each other in the reeds below the Italian Garden.

A Honeybee browsed in a pretty bindweed flower in the Dell.

The patch of bindweed seems to have been planted deliberately, while in Kensington Gardens desperate efforts are being made to eradicate it, and a long section of flower bed in the Flower Walk is covered with plastic sheeting which will remain in place for two years. (I bet the unstoppable plant springs gaily back into growth at the end of this time.)

Hot day

On a hot afternoon a Magpie was panting in the grass on Buck Hill.

A Carrion Crow dug up caterpillars in the Italian Garden.

A Song Thrush was keeping cool in the shade of the bushes.

A Robin in the Flower Walk has lost its tail fathers and will have to wait till the beginning of autumn to grow some more. It seems to be able to fly well enough, and here has just made a perfect landing on the fence in the Flower Walk.

The young Great Tits are noticeably quieter and gradually becoming independent.

Ahmet Amerikali reports that the Goldcrests in the big yew on the edge of the Dell now have chicks, so for the parents there will be weeks of frantic activity. They can have as many as eighteen, and each one has to be fed at least every twenty minutes. There is a sort of convection in their cup-shaped nest as the hungriest chicks rise to the top.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was dozing in the top of the chestnut tree and taking no notice of what was happening on the ground.

A Grey Wagtail hunted along the slimy shore of the southwest corner of the Serpentine.

A Lesser Black-Backed Gull had a wash and preen.

A Grey Heron was lying on the wire baskets around the island -- not typical behaviour by any means, but I've seen it doing this before and it seems healthy.

The Canada Geese that retuen to the park every June to moult include these two with speckled heads. They aren't hybrids: it's something seen among pure-bred birds but the tendency to speckles does often surface in the hybrids with Greylags.

There's another on the Round Pond.

The Mallard family were circling the pond at quite a speed ...

... but the Mandarins were resting on the kerb.

A Honeybee fed on a little white clover flower on the lawn.

Ahmet found a female Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonfly in the Rose Garden. They are hugely outmumbered by males, which can be seen every few yards along the edge of the Serpentine.

Lastly, two fine pictures from Spain sent in by Emilio Pacios, who was visiting the National Park of Las Tablas de Daimiel, in the province of Ciudad Real, Castilla-La Mancha. There was a Black-Necked Grebe in full breeding plumage, with its startling red eyes ...

... and two Ferruginous drakes, Aythya nyroca, a bird I've never seen.

Insects on the menu

A Blackbird on the Vista collected a mixture of mixture of midges and crane fly larvae for its young.

A Robin in the Flower Walk was carrying a caterpillar.

A Wren gathered nesting material. Thanks to Ahmet Amerikali for this picture.

Male Wrens have several mates, each with her own nest, so it's not surprising to see nest building late in the season.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery could be seen in the top of the chestnut tree.

Again there was the sound of an owlet calling persistently, but it remained invisible from every angle.

The Coot nesting at the bridge was turning the eggs.

Its mate was in the water keeping an Egyptian Goose from approaching.

The goose is much less of a threat than the Herring Gulls which perch on the posts, not to mention the local Grey Heron that fishes here, shown standing in front of the nest.

One of the six new Coot chicks in the Italian Garden fountains was preening in a clump of purple loosestrife. It had a nibble at a leaf but didn't like it. This is one of the few water plants that Coots don't destroy. It's no use for making nests and evidently it tastes nasty.

Just along the shore there was yet another Coot nest built on the open shore, without the slightest chance of success.

I haven't seen any sign of a Great Crested Grebe nesting this summer, and at the moment there aren't many on the lake. They have plenty of time to start, and the supply of small fish for the chicks should be fine now. This one was fishing among the algae at the north end of the Long Water.

A pair of Egyptian Geese at the east end of the Serpentine have four new goslings. The Dell restaurant terrace is a good place to parade them as there's a chance of being thrown some titbits.

A gosling looked out from its mother's wing beside the Round Pond.

The Mallard ducklings were charging along the edge. They must cover many miles a day.

The Mandarins were resting. The smallest one shows no sign of catching up with the other two, which are now quite large. But it seems healthy and active -- too active in fact, as this is the one that keeps wandering off on its own.

A female Emperor dragonfly was making short hops ...

... from one floating reed stem to another to lay eggs.

Ahmet got a picture of a male perched on a reed.

There were also Black-Tailed Skimmers flying over the dense mat of algae, a good place to hunt midges.

The elusive owlet

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was in his usual place in the chestnut tree ...

... and there was the sound of an owlet begging, but try as I might I couldn't see it from any angle. The call was coming from somewhere around the nest hole and it may have been inside.

Is it just human imagination, or do the Great Tit parents look absolutely at the end of their tether as their young continue to beg at them? At any rate, they will be able to stop quite soon and spend the rest of the summer recovering.

A Carrion Crow grabbed a bit of bread from someone feeding the waterfowl at the Dell restaurant and dunked it in the lake, picking up a tasty coating of algae.

A Grey Wagtail was hunting on the shore near the outflow ...

... and a Pied Wagtail on the edge of the Round Pond caught a small insect.

A young Herring Gull on the pond played with a twig.

The young Grey Heron was still fishing on the electric boat platform, evidently a good place.

A Moorhen found a comfortable spot to rest on the canvas cover of an electric boat, buttoned over the minor controls to stop hirers from messing around with them.

The four young Coots from the nest near the Peter Pan statue are now almost fully grown, but still have greyish juvenile plumage. You can hear a Greenfinch singing in the tree above.

There are several more Coot nests in silly places around the Serpentine. This one has just appeared at the Triangle. It may be hard on the Coots to have few good places to nest but it's a mercy, as the population is steadily climbing.

Such is the reign of terror exercised by the dominant male Mute Swan on the lake with his six cygnets, that only one other nest has produced any young, and even then just one cygnet. The nest was well hidden in the reed bed by the Serpentine outflow, as far from the dominant swan's domain on the Long Water as possible.

The Bar-Headed x Greylag Goose hybrid sat on the edge of the Serpentine patiently waiting for its new flight feathers to come through.

The smallest Mandarin duckling on the Round Pond had strayed off again, but was returning to the family when I found it.

The young Mallards are getting proper speckled feathers.

A female Emperor dragonfly below the Italian Garden fountains was laying eggs on bits of floating reed.

A Comma butterfly rested on a nettle. There are now quite a lot of these beautiful creatures flying around the lake.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee worked over an eryngium flower near the Lido.