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.

Missing a moth

There were no surprises today, but everything seemed to be going well. The male Little Owl at the Serpentine reappeared in the big plane tree after his absence in yesterday's rain.

A Jay waited for a peanut on the railings by the bridge.

A young Pied Wagtail hunted insects in the debris at the edge of the Serpentine.

A Cormorant preened and flapped on what looks like a very uncomfortable perch on the edge of a piece of wire mesh, but it seemed not to mind.

The four Little Grebe chicks were in the middle of the Long Water waiting for their parents to turn up with fish. They are remarkably loud for such small birds and can be heard a hundred yards away.

The three Great Crested Grebe chicks were under the poplar with their mother. They're still too young to move far from the nest.

The two chicks on the Serpentine were at Fisherman's Keep.

The single oldest chick was also here, but no one has seen the family from the nest of the island. Sato wondered whether they had moved to the Long Water, but I think that these chicks would be larger than the Long Water ones.

The teenage grebe was by the swan nesting raft at the Triangle, where it has been seen several times before, probably looking for fish in the shadow of the raft.

The raft had its usual crew of the Mute Swan 4GIX, a pair of Moorhens and a Coot.

The two cygnets were at the Dell restaurant, looking bright and active with no sign that one of them had been ill.

The single cygnet on the Long Water was begging by itself at the Vista ...

... where there was also a Mandarin teenager, clearly a drake as its bill is already pink. It seems likely that this is one hatched on the Long Water rather than one of the Round Pond eleven, as there was no sign of any others.

A Hummingbird Hawk Moth was flying around the herbaceous borders in the Rose Garden, but it wouldn't stop for an instant and I didn't get a picture of it. I had to be content with a very ordinary Batman Hoverfly on a strawflower.

A spear thistle by the Italian Garden attracted a Common Drone Fly ...

... and a Common Carder bee, of which there are a great many at the moment.

The dwarf pomegranate bushes in the giant flower pots at the Lido restaurant are fruiting well.

Just up the path to the east there has been an outburst of exoticism, with a persimmon ...

... and a grapefruit. There's no chance of them ripening in the English climate.

Proper English weather at last

It was a dull day with occasional drizzle and there was little to see.

The two Great Crested Grebe chicks on the Serpentine are now actively learning to fish, diving after their parents and having little expeditions on their own. One scared a Coot by surfacing under it.

The new family on the Long Water were still under the poplar tree. They are hard to spot at that distance, and the way to find them  is to wait till a parent diving under the bridge ...

... catches a fish and takes it up to the chicks. Here one of them is still riding on its mother's back.

The Little Grebes were nearer under the willow by the bridge. Two of the chicks came out when a parent arrived with a fish.

The teenage Little Grebe appeared on the Serpentine again, diving busily. It did its characteristic jump and shrug mentioned by Jame Austen in Persuasion. Describing Louisa recovering after her accident, she wrote, 'If one happens only to shut the door a little hard, she starts and wriggles like a young dab-chick in the water.'

The Moorhen chick at the island went for a stroll with a parent.

A Moorhen on the ruined raft at the Triangle came recklessly close to a Mute Swan.

The Egyptian goslings at Fisherman's Keep were in a cosy huddle.

A lot of Egyptians had come out from the lake and were browsing on the lawn east of the Dell, and there were four in the Rose Garden. The pair that live by the Huntress fountain here are usually very territorial, but peace reigned for a moment. It's going to take a while for the grass to recover.

A Cormorant made itself comfortable on the clump of grass in the wire basket at the island.

Another dried its wings on a post at the bridge in an interval between showers.

The Czech Black-Headed Gull was patrolling its territory at Fisherman's Keep.

In spite of the weather there were people on the terrace of the Lido restaurant, and the Starlings were waiting for their chance.

A very late young Robin in the Rose Garden caught a fly in a flower bed.

The male Coal Tit came out in the yew tree at the southeast corner of the Dell, lured by pine nuts on the railings.

A Jackdaw applied for a peanut on the shore by the island ...

... and a Jay waited on a fallen trunk by the Serpentine Gallery, but the Little Owls were staying in their hole.

It wasn't a day for seeing many insects, but the hardy Common Carder bees were at work on the pink stonecrop in the Rose Garden.

A crow's warning

The Little Grebe family had gone back to the reeds on the east side of the Long Water. A parent was feeding one of the chicks ...

... while the other three stayed at the edge.

A Great Crested Grebe chick on the Serpentine was persecuting its mother, but she was busy preening and ignored it for the time being. The chicks get all the fish they need, but that doesn't keep them quiet for long.

At least the single chick from the Dell restaurant was having a rest.

The chicks on the Long Water were hidden under the poplar tree, but I saw a parent going up the lake with a fish, and in the distance you could see a chick coming out of cover to take it.

A pair of Coots preened on the chain by the bridge. They have tried to build a nest here several times, but nothing has ever come of it.

In 2004 a pair of Great Crested Grebes did manage to nest on this chain, and even to raise five chicks. But they were lucky enough to do it in a spell of calm weather. If there are any waves a nest here gets washed away, and with the new boat people zooming around irresponsibly in powerboats and raising a huge wash there isn't a chance. The Coot nest on the chain on the Long Water stays in place because it's more sheltered there.

One of the two Mute cygnets on the Serpentine has been ill and weak in the past few days, and was nearly taken into care by the bird rescue group. But they decided it was better off left to recover by itself, and today both of the young ones were fine and active. We think it may have had a slight attack of botulism, but waterfowl have a high resistance to the toxin. The bacterium Clostridium botulinum produces it in anaerobic conditions in mud, and it is released by birds dabbling on the lake floor.

However, one of the Egyptian Geese in the Italian Garden has been looking droopy for a while, and the rescuers are keeping an eye on it. These birds have a health service that humans can only envy.

The water in the lake under the Italian Garden is absolutely septic and smelly, with dead algae and a heavy growth of blue-green cyanobacteria. Luckily the Egyptians stay in the pools, which are quite clean.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery looked down from the big plane tree.

Both Peregrines were on the tower, but flew away before I could get round to them. I also missed the Hobbies.

A Jackdaw waited for a peanut on a block of new stone inserted into the parapet of the bridge during the recent repairs. How much more attractive tbe creamy Bath limestone is than the dead white Portland stone that began to be used in the mid-19th century. It weathers to a soft pale brown while Portland stone goes a cold grey.

'When the crow is silent, it is well. But when it speaks, so it shall be.'

— Irish proverb.

Starlings at the Dell restaurant leapt into the air to catch thrown crumbs. The restuarant staff absolutely hate people feeding them, but who can resist these lively birds?

This is the second Robin in the Flower Walk which is coming to my hand for pine nuts. It's much smarter than the tatty original one.

There were also several Blue Tits.

A Coal Tit appeared in the yew tree at the southeast corner of the Dell. This is the one with little white flecks above both eyes that I think is the female of the pair.

A Common Carder bee browsed on a lantana in the Rose Garden.

When I saw this grey bee on a patch of stonecrop I thought it must be an Ashy Mining Bee, but these appear in early summer and are over now. In fact it's a completely bleached Common Carder, seemingly quite old from the tattered condition of its wings.

These bees really do vary a lot in colour, through the pale brown of the bee in the first picture to the bright ginger of the one shown yesterday in an autumn crocus. Do they fade with time, or is it natural variation?