More Mandarin ducklings

A Mandarin has brought out six ducklings on the Round Pond. It's a slightly less dangerous place than the main lake as there are fewer big gulls, and last year a Mandarin -- possibly the same one -- managed to raise three young.

But there are still gulls. Three Herring Gulls stood uncomfortably close to a Coot which had foolishly nested on the gravel strip.

I don't think the eggs that the Mute Swan 4GIQ is sitting on are going to hatch now. Jenna suggests that they got overheated. I think it also likely that genetic incompatibility was a reason -- we know that hybrids do hatch, but we don't know how often. I think that on the day when the swans were excited one egg did hatch and the cygnet died, and that the rest are infertile. But who knows? 

Again, a pair of Great Crested Grebes were eyeing the basket enviously, the female so intent that she forgot to snap up some Common Blue Damselflies hovering next to her. If 4GIQ gives up and abandons the nest, they would have a chance to build on a place where the wickerwork fence wrecked by the swans is trailing in the water -- but that's a big if. They can't go on to the Long Water as they are constantly threatened by grebes which have territory there, and in fact there had just been a dispute by the bridge.

A Carrion Crow ate half-melted ice cream at the Vista ...

... and a Jay more conventionally perched on the railings to demand a peanut.

The old male Chaffinch was also waiting in the bushes.

A Wren protested at a Magpie in the clump of alders near the Italian Garden.

Ahmet Amerikali found a Reed Warbler east of the Lido ...

... and also a Cetti's Warbler, not here but in Battersea Park. It's not surprising that these increasingly common birds are there too.

An Emperor dragonfly hunted midges in the shadows under the bridge ...

... and a pair of Black-Tailed Skimmers mated on the shore.

Red-Eyed Damselflies flew over the algae in the Italian Garden. 

I saw three Red-Veined Darters flying over the Long Water but didn't get a picture. So I went to the Round Pond where you usually find more, but didn't see any. However, there was a little Garden Grass Veneer Moth, Chrysoteuchia culmella, on a seed head.

A Painted Lady butterfly fed on the stachys in the Rose Garden ...

... and a Small Tortoiseshell, almost unrecognisable with its wings folded, perched on a pink rose.

A Wool Carder Bee stayed still for long enough to get a reasonable picture.

The tall purple spikes of Woodland Sage, Salvia nemorosa, were thronged with Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.