Little Grebe chicks on the Long Water

There is just one pair of Little Grebes in the park and they have hatched chicks. I have only known this species to breed here once before, but all their chicks were soon taken. However, this pair has quite a safe place among the reeds on the west side of the Long Water. The net only reaches down to water level and the chicks are diving under it without trouble. The family could only be viewed from the bridge and were at least a hundred yards away, so I haven't got good pictures. But you can see that there are four chicks ...

... and that they are being fed on small fish ...

... and insects.

The video shows that the parents are very active in getting food for them. Let's wish them success.

By the Serpentine island the father of the two Great Crested Grebe chicks shook himself impatiently. Even grebe parents get worn down by their insatiable squeaking young.

The eldest chick on the other side of the lake preened its immaculate white underside.

A Moorhen in one of the wire baskets at the island preened next to a nest that has become a sort of plastic tent with a roof. You can see from the size of the twigs that this isn't the Moorhen's nest and was clearly built by a Coot.

The Mute Swan 4DTT brought her cygnet over to the Vista to try a bit of begging.

The four Egyptian goslings were in good order at Fisherman's Keep.

The Grey Heron in the Italian Garden swallowed a perch. Because of the spiny dorsal fin of these fish they can only be swallowed head first, so the heron flips it into the air to turn it and catches it neatly.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery looked down from a lime tree. She had fluffed up her eyebrows to the max, and when I first saw her I though she was the male. The raised feathers at the corners of her face almost form ear tufts.

The male was harder to see in the big plane tree.

A Jackdaw approached in the Diana fountain enclosure to ask for a peanut.

A Jay near the Italian Garden had the same idea.

A Long-Tailed Tit paused in a hawthorn on the other side of the path.

The Coal Tits in the Dell can be summoned by putting pine nuts on the railings.

The Robin in the scrub east of the Lido is very shy and hasn't grasped the idea of being fed.

There has been an odd shortage of terrapins on the Long Water. Earlier this year there were five and they were often seen together, but in the past few weeks there have only been occasional sightings of a single one.

Not a worm to be had

A Song Thrush looked for insects among the fallen leaves in the scrubby patch by the Lido. In these dry conditions it won't have had any worms for months.

A Robin in the same place found what must have been a dull-coloured moth, which it ate.

The usual Jackdaw sidled up, this time with two friends. Word gets out that peanuts are on offer.

This young Jay is one of the offspring of the pair which were flying around the Serpentine Gallery recently. It was on a half-dead oak tree north of the Flower Walk, where I had gone to try to find the second pair of Little Owls that have been calling recently. There was just one very short call, not enough to find the place.

The male owl at the gallery looked down from his usual lime tree.

The male Peregrine was on the tower, in the middle of preening and looking very disarranged.

A Grey Heron perched on the closed gate of the Lido.

A Cormorant flapped furiously on a post by the Serpentine island. It was drying its wings, but they would have dried anyway without all this frantic effort.

The resident Cormorant in the Italian Garden rested on the kerb of one of the pools.

The mother of the single Great Crested Grebe chick on the Serpentine was taking time off from attending to the noisy young one, and had a stretch and a preen.

The Mute Swan 4DVZ accompanied her cygnets past the island ...

... and 4DTT was on the far side of the Vista with her single cygnet.

Canada Geese collected at the edge, waiting for a chance to graze on the remains of the grass. It's not a good place as they are constantly interrupted by dog owners encouraging their pets into the water. The large and hideous signs recently painted on the tarmac don't make the slightest difference, as you would expect. It seems odd that they don't graze on the lawn under the Henry Moore sculpture, where Egyptians go routinely. They don't even have to fly, they can walk there from the edge of the water.

The Egyptian pair in the Italian Garden climbed up the duckboard to get out of the pool. It seems a strange thing to say, but I really don't think that they realised till recently that these boards were a way of getting in an out. Nor did the Coots until this year, but then they suddenly got the idea and the Egyptians have copied them.

More and more Pochards are collecting on the fallen poplar at Peter Pan.

A Batman hoverfly browsed on a strawflower in the Rose Garden. It has been a very poor year for hoverflies and there are some normally common species that I haven't seen at all, such as the big Hornet hoverfly.

It's easy for Common Carder bees to feed on the little mauve convolvulus flowers at the edge of the Dell ...

... but when a big Buff-Tailed Bumblebee lands on one, the flower tips over and it has to hang on tight.

Bullies bullied

A rat in the Dell was harassed by the Magpie family and fled, but then the Magpies were ousted by a Carrion Crow.

Both the Coal Tits came down from the big yew tree to take pine nuts from the railings.

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits worked through a clump of hawthorns near the Italian Garden ...

... with other birds following, including this Blue Tit. The tree here is a cockspur hawthorn, with ferocious spikes.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery could be seen in a lime tree.

There was also a pair of Little Owls calling north of the Flower Walk again. Unfortunately you have to go to the end of the walk to get roung to the north side, and by the time I arrived in the area they had fallen silent and I couldn't find them. There are a lot of old trees with holes here, a suitable place for owls.

A Grey Heron perched on the gate of the Lido in front of the green flag awarded for a well managed park. Unfortunately nature laughs at management, and the Lido is closed because the water is full of toxic cyanobacteria.

A Cormorant ousted a Herring Gull from a post at the island ...

... and jumped up.

This one in the Italian Garden brought up a fish in a large bundle of algae. It struggled to separate the fish but failed, and the fish escaped.

I photographed Cormorants on the fallen poplar at the Vista, but what the picture mainly shows is the large number of Pochards. The Common Pochard is is serious decline and Red listed, but we seem to get more every year.

Among the Pochards at Peter Pan, the Moorhen chicks could be seen to have grown well.

The Coots at the bridge were back on their nest after a heron had given up using it as a fishing station. The nest has never been successful, but they stick tenaciously to it and it's their home.

All six Great Crested Grebe chicks were all right. I didn't see the three at the island, but Sato did. The single one was in the middle of the lake, making a tremendous racket but not doing anything worth a picture. Here are the two on the south side of the island, with their father bringin them a fish. It's a pity that they have to be photographed from so far away.

The nest on the island has been occupied by a Mallard again. It doesan't matter, the grebes don't need it any more.

Two Red-Crested Pochard drakes in eclipse cruised past. In this state they have exactly the same plumage as females, but their red bills and eyes show what they are.

Egyptian goslings are surprisingly good at diving and swimming under water. Here they are doing it for fun, but it can also help them dodge aerial predators.

Grebe chick update

The three Great Crested Grebe chicks at the Serpentine island, not seen for several days, arrived back at the nest aboard their mother, who shook them off under the safety of a bush.

One of them climbed on to its father's back. The other two had a wrestling session before joining it.

The two chicks from the other nest on the island could be seen from across the lake under a moored boat.

The single and oldest chick, seen by the boat hire platform, is now quite large.

The fallen poplar at Peter Pan has an ever changing variety of occupants. Today it was the turn of the Pochards.

The efficient Egyptian Geese at Fisherman's Keep had their four goslings arranged in a tidy huddle.

The shore here is in a sad and smelly state. The Czech Black-Headed Gull looked disapprovingly at at the slime.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery appeared in the same place as yesterday, but later in the day when the light was directly behind him so it was hard to get a picture.

The regular Robin was waiting in the Flower Walk.

A Great Tit called from a clump of pyracantha berries. They do eat fruit in the autumn when the supply of insects begins to wane, but there are still plenty of bugs for them at the moment.

When a Great Tit in the Dell comes out under a bush expecting to be fed ...

... usually the Coal Tits notice and appear in the big yew tree.

In the present conditions puddles are a rare and precious thing. Luckily the drain of the Bulgarian drinking fountain at Mount Gate is blocked, and a Feral Pigeon was enjoying the overflow.

The Painted Lady butterflies have set off on their long migration south, but this one was too tattered to join them. It can live out the rest of its life on the abundance of the sea lavender in the Rose Garden.

A Red Admiral was fresh and immaculate.

A Meadow Brown browsed on the spiky flowers of American Blue Vervain, Verbana hastata, in the Flower Walk. It's none too blue.

There was a Common Carder bee on the same plant.

You never know what you're going to see in the Italian Garden.