A new grebe chick?

Long-Tailed Tits have become more visible as they finish looking after their young and join in the big flocks that sweep around the park in autumn and winter. They gathered at the Vista before crossing the gap together for safety in numbers.

Ahmet Amerikali found another one by the bridge ...

... and also a Reed Warbler picking an insect off a reed under the Italian Garden.

Pied Wagtails often run along the edge of the Lido restaurant terrace. Spilt food from the tables attracts insects.

A female Blackbird sunbathed near Temple Gate.

Both the female Little Owl ...

... and her daughter could be seen at different times in the big plane tree by the Serpentine Gallery.

The usual pair of Jays followed me down the edge of the Long Water taking peanuts on the way.

A Magpie east of the Lido looked hot and uncomfortable.

Two of the young Grey Herons were in the fifth nest while the third climbed up a branch above them.

A Cormorant shone in the sunlight at Peter Pan.

It's hard to see anything in the Great Crested Grebes' nest on the island, as it's in deep shade, but that looks like a chick poking its head out from its father's wing.

The family from the east end of the island were out on the water. A chick flapped its little wings.

The single  chick on the north shore of the Serpentine begged incessantly until it was shut up with a fish.

The two Coot chicks in the southwest pool of the Italian Garden enjoyed having the nest to themselves.

The Black Swan mooched around peacefully enough with 4GIQ. He really has become much less aggressive.

A Red Admiral butterfly flitted restlessly about the sea lavender in the Rose Garden.

Wasps have made a nest in a hole in a tree stump on the busy path beside the Serpentine.

Impatient Robin

The female Robin at Mount Gate expected to be given some pine nuts, and was slightly annoyed when I filmed her instead. Of course she got her reward immediately afterwards.

Long-Tailed Tits searched for leaf miner moth caterpillars in the badly damaged leaves of a horse chestnut in the Flower Walk.

Blackcaps are very shy and hard to photograph, so it was pleasing to get a picture of a female at the southwest corner of the bridge ...

... and Ahmet Amerikali found another near the Italian Garden.

He also photographed a Chiffchaff in the trees east of the Lido, evidently a young one as it was begging and fluttering its wings.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was back in his usual lime tree after several days' absence.

The male owlet was in the big plane tree ...

... and three hours later his sister appeared in the same tree.

Both the Peregrines were on the tower, but by the time I got round to it the male had flown off. The female was preening.

This isn't a good video, as I couldn't get near the swan nesting raft at the Lido restaurant and had to stretch awkwardly over the fence. But it does show two young Grey Wagtails and a parent -- the one on the far right. This is the second time the pair has bred this year.

The young Grey Herons in the fifth nest have started climbing around, and two of them could be seen in the branches above the nest.

The heron in the Italian Garden was standing on the edge of the northwest pool. It saw a fish, dived in, and missed it. Here it is crossly swimming back to a place where it could get its feet on the ground.

At least it was leaving the Coots' nest in the southwest pool alone, and the Coots reclaimed it.

They had also been troubled by the local Cormorant, but it too crossed to the pool on the other side.

It's too early to get up hopes, but the Great Crested Grebe on the nest on the island was sitting with his wings raised, and it's possible that he was sheltering a chick.

The pair at the east end of the island were out with their chicks on the water.

The Egyptian Geese at Fisherman's Keep still have their four goslings. The mother is vigilant and the goslings are keeping close to her, which is far from always the case.

A Ruddy Darter dragonfly perched on a yucca leaf in the Dell.

Chaffinches in the Flower Walk

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was hiding in the leaves of the big plane tree ...

... where her daughter appeared later.

The male owlet was very visible in a lime. He is much less shy than his sister.

In the Flower Walk the old female Chaffinch ...

... and the young male came out to catch thrown pine nuts in midair.

A Jay in a winged elm near the Italian Garden waited to fly out and grab a peanut.

Ahmet Amerikali saw several Reed Warblers here, in the bed on the east side of the Long Water.

He also found the young Grey Wagtail near the Lido.

The Grey Heron in the Italian Garden was using a duckboard as a fishing station. It yawned.

A brief clip of the feeding frenzy caused by throwing a bit of French bread into the water when there are Black-Headed Gulls around. The gull that gets it has to flee a furious pursuit by its companions.

The Great Crested Grebe chicks at the east end of the Serpentine island took a turn in the water while their parents preened the feathers ruffled by carrying them.

One the other side of the lake the single chick accepted a small fish from its mother.

The Egyptian family went by, still with four goslings.

The Tufted ducklings are already skilled divers.

The single cygnet on the Long Water ate poplar leaves from an overhanging branch.

There are many varieties of salvia in the park and all of them are popular with bees. Buff-Tailed Bumblebees and Common Carders thronged a large patch in the Italian Garden.

In the Rose Garden a Common Carder browsed on a clump of sedum.

I think this fly on a strawflower is Tachina magnicornis, which seems to have no common name.

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.