Hungry owlet

The female Little owlet at the Serpentine Gallery was making begging calls in the plane tree. It was late afternoon and she was hungry. In natural surroundings Little Owls can hunt worms and beetles and feed their young all day, but in the park with people and dogs all over the ground they can only do this at dawn and dusk. Nevertheless, Little Owls are breeding well in the park.

A Wren sang on a cypress branch in the Dell.

This Robin in a flower bed at Mount Gate has adult plumage, but the yellow edge at the base of its bill shows that it's quite young. I think this may be the Robin that I glimpsed briefly here several months ago when it still had juvenile spotted plumage, and which has now grown up.

The Coot on the swan nesting raft at the Triangle was standing up and looking agitated, chewing nervously at a toe. I don't think the eggs are hatching already, and from another angle you could see them intact in the nest, so I don't know what was going on.

The Great Crested Grebe on the nest under the Dell restaurant balcony had a visit from two Mute cygnets. There are only three of these on the lake at the moment, as one has just been picked up suffering from water inhalation, a very serious thing for birds with their delicate complex respiratory system. It's being looked after at the moment and we hope it will recover and be returned to the family.

Now it would be unfair to point the finger at the obvious culprit ... 

... but these swans have now lost three cygnets. One went very early and may have been snatched by Pigeon Eater or another gull ...

... but the others were growing well and too large for a gull to grab. The family had been coming up the lake past the island, getting dangerously close to the Black Swan's territory. Then they lost a cygnet and immediately retreated to the far end of the lake, from which they have not emerged. But now they have nearly lost another to what looks like a deliberate swan attack.

The Black Swan's hybrid cygnet was eating Skullcap, Scutellaria galericulata, under the supervision of its mother 4GIQ. The plant is recommended as a mild sedative and nerve tonic. Its odd name comes from the supposed resemblance of the flower to a little medieval helmet. It doesn't look a bit like one to me.

There was a report of an Egyptian in a bad way in the Italian Garden, and I went to look after it till Jenna arrived to check it out. This is the male of the pair often seen in the garden. It wasn't too bad, a slight limp and some tattered feathers on its back. Jenna thought it had been in a territorial fight. The female was in the lake under the fountain. We will keep an eye on it for the next few days.

The mother Egyptian with six teenagers hastily crossed the Serpentine Road to avoid an oncoming dog.

There were two other teenagers with their mother at the Vista. Not clear where they came from.

Half a dozen Pochards had joined the crowd of resting duck at the Triangle, absolutely unfazed by passing humans.

A Painted Lady butterfly rested on the path, well camouflaged among the small stones and bits of plant detritus.

A Red Admiral perched on a nettle at the edge of the Caroline enclosure (that is, the scrubby patch at the southeast corner of the Serpentine where there is a memorial to Queen Caroline).

A Comma butterfly flexed its wings on a leaf in the Dell. You can see the little white curved mark on the underwing that gives the species its name.

The herbaceous borders in the Rose Garden have been planted with two different colour schemes, red and orange in one and blue and mauve in the other. The bees greatly prefer the second, and there's hardly an insect to be seen in the first. Here is a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee on something I'd never heard  of, Wavyleaf Sea Lavender, Limonium sinuatum.

A small pink rose was visited by what I am fairly sure is a European Drone Fly, Eristalis arbustorum.

Most of the planting around here is thorougly tasteful, but the gardeners are allowed to go over the top to cheer up the unlovely surroundings of the public lavatory at the bandstand. The result looks so like a Douanier Rosseau jungle that you start looking for a badly painted tiger.

Still singing

The Blackbird song season is almost over, but this one was still singing mildly in the Rose Garden. He was answered by a Wood Pigeon.

The male Robin came out at Mount Gate. He's looking a bit worn but not as desperately tatty as his mate.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery could be seen in the lime tree some way from her nest.

One of her owlets was begging in the nest tree, very hard to find in the leaves. This was the best picture I could get, and it took all of 20 minutes going round the tree at different distances.

A Grey Heron sunbathed on the shore by the island, ignoring the passing humans.

Magpies nest every year at the Triangle, and the family was bouncing around on the path.

The fallen tree at Peter Pan provides a drinking place for a Carrion Crow ...

... and a Moorhen.

A Coot brought a bit of reed to its mate nesting in the water lilies in the Rose Garden.

The Coots nesting on the swan raft, no longer troubled by the Black Swan, have eggs.

The four Mute cygnets milled around under the balcony of the Dell restaurant while the Great Crested Grebes exchanged places on their eggs.

The hybrid cygnet was by itself near the landing stage, feeling lonely and piping plaintively.

The sound brought both parents over.

There are two Canada Geese with speckled heads here at the moment. We've already seen the one that has a trace of Canada pattern on its face. This one doesn't.

A pair of Egyptians on the Long Water are showing interest in the swan nesting island, unused since the Canadas nested on it some time ago. They do nest on the ground if they can find a safe place.

Two Red-Crested Pochards, two Mallards, a Gadwall and a Tufted Duck lounged in the ducks' meeting place at the Triangle. It's a smelly spot on a hot day.

Common Blue Damselflies mated at Peter Pan.

There were a few Red-Eyed Damselflies in the northeast pool in the Italian Garden.

Angry Wren

A Wren in a holly tree in the Flower Walk ticked furiously at a Magpie. They spend much of their little lives shouting at Magpies.

Ahmet Amerikali found a family of Blackcaps at the southwest corner of the bridge. This is the father.

He also photographed this rather featureless bird in the same place, clearly a warbler but looking odd from the low angle. Tom thinks it's a juvenile Reed Warbler, but isn't sure.

A Jay in the same place was looking hot, but still flew out to grab a peanut from my hand.

The female Little Owlet at the Serpentine Gallery could be seen in the plane tree.

Her mother was asleep in a lime.

The returning Black-Headed Gulls are still mostly at the Round Pond. There was just one on the Long Water, and this one at the landing stage by the Diana fountain. I'm almost sure that this is the dominant gull who owns the landing stage, but he is missing some feathers on his forehead which makes his profile look odd.

A pair of Lesser Black-Backed Gulls moaned at each other at the Triangle. The male, on the left, is in his third year and won't have full adult plumage for another year. The female is an adult.

Generally the large mob of Herring Gulls on the lake perch on the boats, but it's cooler in the water and they have moved. A few Lesser Black-Backs are mixed in.

Looking at the Great Crested Grebes' stolen nest under the Dell restaurant balcony from the other side, it's possible to see two eggs.

The abandoned grebe nest at the island has been taken over by a female Mallard. She is usually accompanied by a Gadwall drake, but this is not the usual trio as the third duck, hard to see at the back, is a Tufted Drake. The picture has been photobombed by two male Common Blue Damselflies. They are everywhere, to the virtual exclusion of other kinds of damselfly.

A Coot cooled off with a vigorous wash.

The hybrid cygnet was alone on the edge by the landing stage with its mother 4GIQ some distance away in the water, preening.

The Black Swan came ashore nearer the bridge, but the attraction was the hope of being given sunflower hearts and not the welfare of his cygnet.

The Mandarin mother and her two teenagers were at the Vista.

In the place at the Triangle where the swans sometimes collect there was a crowd of Mallards resting in the shade all over the path. There was one Gadwall at far left, and at the back a Red-Crested Pochard drake in the middle of the path ...

... who objected strongly to my walking past him at a polite distance.

The urns in the Italian Garden were planted with agaves and Red Yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora, which were thought to be tough and drought tolerant. The agaves have done well but most of the others have died. However, Nature abhors a vacuum and has supplied a poppy.

The grebes at the restaurant have eggs

The Great Crested Grebes who stole the Coots' nest under the balcony of the Dell restaurant now have eggs. You can't see them from this low angle, but the female on the nest is clearly turning them over to keep them evenly warmed.

The Coots who owned the nest and have two chicks are just having to do without.

A pair of Coots nested in an audaciously exposed position on the gravel strip on the Round Pond, where a Herring Gull could stroll up and grab a chick any time it felt hungry. Somehow they've got away with their gamble, but only just as they have one surviving chick.

Mandarin ducklings are very independent and at an early age wander off by themselves. I found four in various parts of the Round Pond. There may have been more.

It was the same on the Serpentine, where one of the two teenagers was resting in the shade of a lifebelt at Fisherman's Keep while the other was with its mother by the bridge.

The single Pochard duckling could be seen across the Vista with its mother.

The Black Swan with his Mute mate 4GIQ were with their cygnet by the bridge, as usual attracting an admiring crowd. They are now a celebrity couple.

The other swan family were at the Dell restaurant terrace, working the tables.

Pigeon Eater was also here, standing on a table. There were Feral Pigeons picking up scraps on the ground and he was clearly working out a way of pouncing on one from above in the narrow space between the benches. He had already killed one today, as I found the remains earlier in Kensington Gardens, probably carried off by a Carrion Crow.

The first Black-Headed Gulls have returned to the Round Pond.

The Greylag Goose U318 and mate were at the Triangle with 14 teenagers hatched outside the park and brought in as soon as they could fly. They can't have had all those by themselves, and probably some of them belong to U410 who has also brought in a family. But it's unusual for Greylags to look after each other's goslings -- unlike Canadas which do this routinely.

A pair of Egyptians at the Round Pond have eight young, now fairly grown up.

Egyptians tend to moult at odd times, not in unison like the larger geese. This one on the Serpentine has started early and is now regrowing its primaries.

The three Grey Heron chicks in the nest at the east end of the island were restless, wandering about and flapping. They will soon be out of the nest and exploring the trees.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery stared down from the plane tree...

... and his daughter was in the chestnut.

Theodore found a feather from an adult under the trees.

I looked for Red-Eyed Damselflies in the Italian Garden and found a few in the northeast pool.

This bright fungus on a half-dead cherry tree by Temple Gate is a Shaggy Bracket, Inonotus hispidus.