Three owls

Two visits to the Serpentine Gallery found a good selection of Little Owls: the female in a lime tree ...

... her daughter in another lime ...

... and her son looking down from the top of the big plane tree.

The small birds are getting back to their normal behaviour. A Robin in the Flower Walk came to my hand for the first time in months ...

... and the Great Tits in the Dell have returned to the corkscrew hazel bush where they can usually be found for most of the year.

A Jay followed me down the edge of the Long Water. As it swooped down to grab a peanut from my hand it alarmed a passing runner who thought it was attacking him.

A Carrion Crow dunked a Cheesy Wotsit in the marble fountain in the Italian Garden.

(Yes, that green slimy fountain really is made out of the finest white Carrara marble. When it was cleaned in 2011 it only took a fortnight to return to its pristine filth.)

A new tree for a Wood Pigeon to fall out of, the absurdly named Harlequin Glorybower, Clerodendrum trichotomum. The fruit it was eating is nowhere near ripe. Later it will develop into peculiar red and blue berries.

The male Pied Wagtail often seen around the Dell restaurant caught an insect on the stonework of the fake bridge in the middle of the dam.

The waterfall in the Dell is back in working order after several days when the electric pump was broken, and the foul smelly water in the little stream is beginning to clear.

The top stage of the waterfall is worked by the pump, and is actually slightly above the level of the lake on the other side of the dam. Water flowing out of the lake emerges at the stage below. The pump recirculates all the water in the stream, so it takes some time for the water to be completely changed as it flows into the culvert that takes the buried Westbourne river down to the Thames just upstream from Chelsea Bridge.

The Czech Black-Headed Gull dominates the south shore of the Serpentine from the Lido to the end of the lake, and any gull that comes near gets chased off. The old cast-iron water level provides a perch in the middle of his territory. He made his presence felt by calling loudly.

The Grey Heron in the Italian Garden had seized the Coots' nest in the waterlilies. The Coots and their two chicks were hanging around crossly in the pool, but there was nothing they could do.

A Coot took a few bites of a discarded watermelon at the edge of the Serpentine and went away, but a Moorhen really liked it. It spent a minute and a half eating it until it had had enough.

The Great Crested Grebes at the east end of the island were carrying one chick each. This is not a sustainable arrangement as one parent has to go off fishing, leaving the other to look after the chicks.

The single chick on the other side of the lake gets visibly larger every day, and is squeaking louder and louder.

The 'Polish' swan 4FUJ raised a grey foot among a group at the Triangle. There are several of these pale swans on the Serpentine, among them 4GIQ the Black Swan's mate. It's quite likely that they are all siblings, and also that they are all female, as the 'Polish' mutation is a sex-linked recessive one which makes it quite rare and also almost always seen in females.

The four Egyptian goslings were with their parents at Fisherman's Keep.

A Meadow Brown butterfly near the Serpentine Gallery looked so featureless that I wasn't sure what it was. Usually you can see a bit of dull orange and a dark spot on its front wings even when they are folded, but this one looks plain brown all over.

Lewis and Clark remembered

I've already filmed the Magpie family in the Dell playing silly games in this spot beside the stream. Today two young ones were chasing each other round an Australian tree fern, one of the many subtropical plants in the Dell.

A Carrion Crow on a stump at Temple Gate was planning some awful exploit.

Just up the hill, the male Little Owl was in his usual lime tree.

Long-Tailed Tits often hunt at the northwest corner of the bridge, where there was at least one nest in the spring.

Ahmet Amerikali photographed a Chiffchaff in the scrubby patch east of the Lido.

He also got this dramatic shot of a Black-Headed Gull catching and eating a surprisingly large carp. This is our Czech visitor, ET05.589 / Orange 2V57. He is the dominant gull of the southern shore and east end of the Serpentine, and has taken over the territory of the other dominant gull White 2331, who was found dead in Latvia in May. It seems that the farthest travelled gulls are not only the most dominant but the most predatory.

A young Black-Headed Gull at Peter Pan had probably travelled no farther than the Thames estuary, where there are several breeding ground such as the Pitsea landfill site at Basildon.

Pigeon Eater was on the prowl at the Dell restaurant, head down in his hunting attitude. He didn't get a pigeon while I was there.

A young Lesser Black-Backed Gull on the roof was begging insistently at him, and was very likely his offspring.

A male Pied Wagtail on the edge of the terrace, in search of smaller prey, ran right under my feet.

The Grey Heron from the Italian Garden stepped around the swan nesting island, unused since the Canada Geese nested on it in spring and now overgrown with Great Willowherb.

The Great Crested Grebes at Fisherman's Keep are down to one chick, but this is already quite large, growing fast, and diving energetically. It could swallow the fairly large fish its father broughts, which would have been too much for it a week ago.

The other grebe family, still with two chicks, were in the middle of the lake and too far off for a good picture.

The Egyptian Geese at Fisherman's Keep are holding on to their four goslings, but there's a long way to go.

The Tufted Duck family were by the reeds at the east end of the Lido. The ducklings were diving furiously all over the place, but I managed to count seven and also to get four into the picture.

A Red-Veined Darter dragonfly turned up unexpectedly on the parched grass by the Serpentine Gallery.

A Common Carder bee, faded from ginger to blonde, browsed on French lavender in the Rose Garden.

The insects here showed a marked preference for the herbaceous border beds with mauve and purple flowers, but now they have started spreading into the red and orange beds. A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee visited a Peruvian lily.

A Painted Lady butterfly harmonised with Lewisia flowers. 

I hadn't known what this plant was until an American visitor told me that it was a native of the western United States and named after Meriwether Lewis, commander of the expedition that penetrated to the west coast between 1804 and 1806. His companion William Clark is also commemorated in the Clarkia flower, a better known species although I had no idea that it was called after the explorer.

Wasp attack

The female Little owlet at the Serpentine Gallery, dozing in a lime tree, woke up for long enough to look at me with one eye, decided I wasn't a threat, and went back to sleep.

The female Peregrine was alone on the barracks tower. Usually when there's just one here it's the male, but you can see the clear white patch on the side of her face. On the male it's dirty grey.

There weren't many small birds on show, but the usual Great Tits came out for pine nuts. This one was in the Dell.

The Grey Heron at the Italian Garden stared at a gap in the algae, waiting for a fish to appear at the edge.

A Great Crested Grebe chick by the boat hire platform climbed aboard its mother by swimming against her, causing her to revolve, and using its wings as front legs. It isn't an efficient method, but it got up somehow. Meanwhile the father brought a small fish to the other chick.

However, there is no sign of progress on the nest on the island, and it's looking increasing as if the eggs are infertile.

Shown at quarter speed, a Moorhen clenched the toes on its big foot when moving it forward to avoid catching them on the other leg, and swam with an underwater bicycling action.

The Coot chicks in the southwest pool in the Italian Garden enjoyed playing on the duckboard.

The three Mute cygnets were at the boathouse. One examined a patch of moss on the wall.

A Grey Squirrel dug in a flowerbed in the Flower Walk, looking for bulbs planted for next spring.

A Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonfly had caught a Greenbottle fly in the air, and perched for a moment on a bench while eating it.

There are still plenty of Emperor dragonflies around the Italian Garden.

A pair of Willow Emerald damselflies hung from a bramble near the Vista. In this species females are noticeably shorter and thicker than males.

Common Blue damselflies laid eggs in the water at Peter Pan.

While I was photographing a Painted Lady butterfly feeding on a strawflower in the Rose Garden ...

... there was a struggle on the next flower. A wasp was attacking a Honeybee. I can't identify this white-faced wasp. It flew off carrying the bee.

 

Later: David Element explained, 'Your photograph is of a female Bee-wolf Philanthus triangulum with a Honeybee that she is in the process of paralysing. The bee, expertly captured while feeding, would then have been taken as provisions for one of her offspring and dragged into her nest hole in the ground. This solitary digger wasp nests in loose aggregations, often in sandy habitats. Protective plates prevent the Honey Bee from stinging in retaliation, and the wasp will sometimes feed on the bee's regurgitated (final!) meal whilst the sting takes effect. As solitary bees face far too much competition for food from domesticated hive bees, this predation will help to tip the balance in their favour.'

A Honeybee browsed peacefully on a gypsywort flower in the baskets of mixed water plants at the Triangle.

A clump of Cardoons in the Flower Walk. These tall and handsome plants are halfway between a thistle and a globe artichoke, and are edible though not very good. They were a staple food during the severe Persian famine of 1917-19 caused by the fighting in the First World War.

Chiffchaff and Coal Tits

A Chiffchaff called from a tree in the Flower Walk and, unusually, stayed in the same place long enough to be properly photographed.

The pair of Coal Tits in the Dell have reappeared after their summer break, and came down from the yew in the corner to take pine nuts from the railings.

A pair of Feral Pigeons shared a post at the Vista. Both are in the original colours of the wild Rock Dove, which is now a minority colour among London pigeons which mostly have the darker 'Blue Chequer' pattern. Pigeons do seem to prefer mates of their own colour.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery wasn't visible earlier, but appeared in his usual lime tree as I was going home.

The Grey Heron in the Italian Garden had been displaced by the Sunday crowds and was on the edge of the lower basin of the marble fountain. It could always jump down to the submerged wall below the basin if it wanted to look for a fish in the mat of algae.

Pigeon Eater and his mate were in their favourite place on the Dell restaurant roof.

A Black-Headed Gull made itself comfortable on a deserted Coot nest on the fallen horse chestnut north of Peter Pan.

I think these Great Crested Grebes with two chicks come from a nest at the east end of the island, where there is an overhanging bush with a suitable submerged branch. They also look like the pair that nested earlier on the chain, but lost their nest because the boat people tied a boat to the chain.

They were making territorial displays against the pair nesting halfway along the island. The nest is still occupied and the eggs are intact, but nothing seems to be happening.

The Mandarin chicks on the Round Pond are growing well. There are ten in this video, but they wander around and the eleventh may have been on the far side of the pond. In any case, it's a fine achievement.

A very pale female Pochard stood on a root on the far side of the lake at the Vista.

The Mute Swan pair brought their single cygnet over for a bit of begging.

The Black Swan rested in the shade of the willow at the Triangle. He is very subdued while he regrows his flight feathers and was not bullying the other swans in his usal style.

A heron stood over the three cygnets at the island.

A pair of Canada Geese flew down the Long Water. The population of geese remains high, and a lot that came in to moult in June are still here ...

... as you can see from this picture of the closed Lido.

The four Egyptian goslings cruised past Fisherman's Keep, led by their parents.

A Red Admiral and Painted Lady butterfly fed on the sea lavender in the Rose Garden. This is about as close as they can get without one chasing the other off.