Grebe out of the water

The Little Grebes on the Long Water were catching small fish at a prodigious rate to feed their four chicks.

A Great Crested Grebe farther up the lake caught a pike.

It was politely offered to a chick but was obviously too large, so the parent ate it.

The number of pike on the lake is certainly going up, and they are now often seen among the prey of the grebes and Cormorants. Ahmet Amerikali took this picture yesterday.

On the posts at the bridge a Cormorant vainly tried to dry its wings during a shower.

The single grebe chick on the Serpentine stretched its wings. The flight feathers are just beginning to come out.

You seldom see a Great Crested Grebe out of the water, but the teenager on the Serpentine had climbed on to the swans' nesting raft to preen.

The young Mandarin drake was preening at the Vista.

A odd combination on the fallen poplar at the Vista: a Cormorant, a Pochard, a Tufted Duck, a young Grey Wagtail and a Yellow-Bellied Slider terrapin.

The first Shovellers have returned. Three could be seen on the Long Water.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was out in the big plane tree.

Rain softened the hard ground enough for the Starlings to hunt for wireworms.

When the Great Tits come out in the corkscrew hazel bush in the Dell ...

... the Coal Tits notice and turn up to take pine nuts from the railings.

A Blue Tit waited in the Flower Walk.

Three more pictures from Ahmet: a Willow Warbler ...

... and a young Chiffchaff both in the scrub at the east end of the Lido ...

... and a Goldcrest in a holly tree at the southwest corner of the bridge.