A misty day with occasional weak sunlight brought the Little Owl out into her usual lime tree. Her favourite spot at the moment is hard to see through the leaves, but probably when the leaves fall off soon she will desert it and may vanish into her hole for the winter.
The pair of Coal Tits arrived and followed me to the bridge, perching a a yew twig level with the parapet. This is the shy one who hangs back in the leaves but can be tempted out by putting down a few pine nuts.
The Coal Tits in the Dell ...
... and the Great Tits were getting impatient because I was trying to photograph a Goldcrest, unsuccessfully because it was always behind a twig. I gave up and put some well deserved pine nuts on the railings.
A Wren perched on the deodar tree.
There were several Jackdaws around the Speke obelisk ...
... and of course the inevitable band of hungry Jays. This one was in the American oak by the Vista.
The Robin just north of Peter Pan is a calmer bird than the one at the bridge, and stood fast on the railings while someone took a close-up picture with his phone. Several people are feeding it, so it regards humans as a useful resource and puts up with their behaviour.
A Grey Heron preened an enormous wing in a willow beside the Long Water.
Another looked down from Buck Hill, where it was hunting rats in the bushes. It would be interesting to know what proportion of their diet is made up of rats. It seems likely that they live almost entirely on fish but look on ratting as an amusing recreation.
Lower down the hill, the Egyptian Goose pair in the Italian Garden had crossed the path to feed on a particularly lush patch of grass.
The Black Swan made a foray on to the Long Water, wings raised aggressively ...
... in full sight of the dominant Mute family, but they ignored him. Even swans get tired of fighting.
These are three more of the dozen young swans that flew into the Round Pond. I now have a report on the ringed one seen on the Serpentine, with metal ring W56648. It was ringed by P.J. Belman as a nestling on 1 July at Kew, since when the only time it has been reported is in the park here.
The young Great Crested Grebes have almost stopped pestering their parents, and are probably now catching all their own fish. One was resting under the bridge with its father.
The young Little Grebe is still on the Round Pond, here photographed in the vague light of a misty sunset.
The fox at the Vista waited patiently for me to shell some peanuts.
A celebration in the Kensington Gardens bandstand of the 50th anniversary of the independence of Western Sahara from Spanish rule. Since then its history has been one of almost continuous civil war, and the country is still divided between administration by Morocco and the self-named Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, with the United Nations poking in occasionally. As you can see from the flags, these people are from the pro-Moroccan faction.
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