The male Little owlet at the Serpentine Gallery, not seen for several days, reappeared in the lime tree some distance from the nest tree where the parents often go to get away from the pestering of their young.
Its father was there too, so he hadn't managed to get away from them.
When I went back later the female owlet had joined them in the tree. This picture shows how an owl's foot has an outer front toe which can be angled forward for running on the ground and backward for grasping a branch or catching prey with two toes forward and two back.
The daily owl searches are now interrupted not only by the local Great Tits but by two Jays constantly demanding peanuts.
Today there was also a Song Thrush foraging under the trees.
The young Carrion Crows are learning to open peanuts themselves instead of expecting their parents to do it for them. I am giving them ones with the shell already cracked to make it easier for them.
The solitary tatty Black-Headed Gull on the Serpentine still hasn't linked up with its companions. There are only a few here yet, and most of them are on the Round Pond.
The collapse of another branch from the weeping willow by the bridge hasn't affected its suitability as a fishing place for Grey Herons and a nest site for Coots. The fallen branches are still attached to the trunk by a bridge of sapwood and bark, so they stay alive as the tree subsides bit by bit into the lake. All fallen trees stay in the lake: the park people would probably like to tidy them up but the health 'n' safety regulations about such a job are now so crazily onerous that they can't afford to.
A Cormorant fishing in a pool in the Italian Garden took a break for a wash ...
... and dried itself on the kerb.
The Coot nesting on the raft at the Traingle was again standing over the eggs with its wings down as if they were hatching, but as far as I could see nothing was happening.
The Great Crested Grebes at the west end of the island seem to have got right into one of the wire baskets, which must be broken as they are supposed to be completely enclosed. It's an excellent place for a nest, protected on all sides. Behind the grebe on the right you can see the Moorhen which is also nesting here.
The grebe nesting under the Dell restaurant balcony and a curious Mute Swan looked askance at each other.
The hybrid cygnet has not been seen since yesterday evening, and it seems increasingly likely that it has died. No one knows what happened.
The three Mute cygnets were with their mother 4DVZ on the shore east of the Lido. There is news of the fourth cygnet, which is alive at the Swan Sanctuary but still on a drip. Jenna thinks it may not have been attacked but may have botulism. The recent hot weather has caused the Clostridium botulinum bacterium to flourish in the lake. Waterfowl are fairly tolerant of it, but two Mallards have been affected by paralysis. One of them is being looked after by Jenna and is now able to stand.
Botulism is far more dangerous to humans and the Loch Maree disaster of 1922 is still remembered, when eight people at a Scottish hotel died of poisoning caused by duck paste in their picnic sandwiches. The bacterium produces spores which survive being boiled, and the only way to be sure of killing the spores is to pressure-cook the food raising the temperature to 121°C.
Tufted Ducks sometimes manage to breed successfully despite the many dangers in the park. This one with three ducklings appeared on the Long Water under the parapet of the Italian Garden.
The Mandarin teenagers were together under a tree at the Vista. Already one of them has a pink beak, showing that it's a drake.
Yesterday I think I saw the single young Pochard on the far side of the lake, but it looks much like an adult female now so it's hard to be sure from a distance.
A Comma butterfly drank nectar from sea lavender flowers in the Rose Garden.
A Red Admiral rested on the path by the Italian Garden, giving a view of its face which is hard for a human to read as a face at all. It is one of the butterflies that have only four functioning legs. The front pair, as reduced and useless as the forelegs of a tyrannosaurus, can be seen tucked up on either side of its head.
