A full house of Little Owls

The whole Little Owl family at the Serpentine Gallery was on view today, with the two owlets together in the chestnut tree ...

... their father keeping an eye on them from a lime ...

... and their mother in a more distant lime. I had to go back later to find her.

A male Blackbird was singing out of sight in the leaf yard, and a young one was on a lower branch listening to him.

On a hot afternoon the small birds were keeping out of sight in the shade, but Ahmet Amerikali continues to get good pictures of the Reed Warblers at the Italian Garden.

He also photographed a Cormorant catching a carp in one of the pools.

Yesterday we saw a Grey Heron catching carp here. In both cases they were going for fair-sized fish, but the water is teeming with young carp a couple of inches long.

A heron sunbathed in a boat at the island.

The Great Crested Grebes here have had very bad luck with nesting. The pair halfway along the island have lost their second nest to a Mallard, and the ones nesting on the chain lost theirs some time ago.

However, the pair under the balcony of the Dell restaurant are still keeping the nest they stole from the Coots.

These are the Coots in the southeast pool in the Italian Garden. When a parent starts preening, the chicks in the nest follow suit.

The solitary tatty Black-Headed Gull was feeling the heat. Its companions will start to trickle back quite soon.

The Black Swan was on the Serpentine taking care of his single hybrid cygnet while his Mute mate 4GIQ went off to have a wash.

A Gadwall drake goimg into eclipse rested in the shade at the Triangle.

A Painted Lady butterfly drank nectar from a Verbena bonariensis in the Flower Walk.

A female Emperor dragonfly was laying eggs on a fallen iris leaf in the Italian Garden ...

... and a male rested on an upright leaf.

After the very brief and scanty showing of Red-Eyed Damselflies in the pools I was wondering how the Small Red-Eyed Damselflies, which come later, would fare. There were quite a few today.

An unexpected Cockatoo

One of the two Little owlets at the Serpentine Gallery looked around from a chestnut branch. It seems as if this one is male, as he already has substantial eyebrows. Previous pictures have shown a female.

Their mother was in the lime tree 50 yards away.

Their father could be heard, but not seen, in a plane tree. I heard him calling a warning when a Sparrowhawk passed overhead. Lower in the same tree two Jays were angling for peanuts.

Nearby at Mount Gate a Carrion Crow was being remorselessly pestered by its two offspring.

The female Robin also appeared here, looking sadly threadbare.

Ahmet Amerikali was in the Italian Garden photographing a Reed Warbler ...

... when a white Cockatoo flew down to take a drink in the fountains. It visited twice and is likely to be seen again here. I haven't seen or heard anything from an owner trying to recover an escaped pet.

Update: I'm told that this is a Cockatiel, though that is a member of the cockatoo family.

The local Grey Heron was catching carp in the pools.

Five minutes after taking that one it got another, but carelessly dropped it.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Great Grested Grebes have kept possession of the stolen Coot nest at the Dell restaurant.

Now that the Black Swan has given up his vigil on the nest raft, the stubborn Coots are in sole possession.

The swan family was together on the other side of the lake.

The Mandarin with her two ducklings, now teenagers, passed by. The second young one was lagging and I couldn't get them all in the picture.

A female Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonfly rested on acanthus flowers in the Dell.

Females are much less common than males, but there was another on the railings at Mount Gate.

A male Emperor perched on purple loosestrife in the Italian Garden ...

... and a Painted Lady butterfly flitted around the vervain which has sprung up all round the pools.

A male Common Blue Damselfly was in a patch of marsh marigolds at the back of the Dell.

Song Thrush still singing

The Song Thrush at the leaf yard was still singing well, and so was the local Chiffchaff which I filmed on 18 June.

A young Carrion Crow came up to beg from a parent and didn't get much, so I gave it a peanut which I had crushed to make it easier to peck open. The youngster is learning the technique, which is a 10-second job for an adult.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery could be seen in his usual lime tree ...

... and an owlet in the chestnut.

Two Jays chased each other through the lime, pausing occasionally to grab peanuts.

A young Great Spotted Woodpecker called from a clump of American oaks down the hill from the Queen's Temple.

On a hot afternoon a Grey Heron was sunbathing on the roof of the Italian Garden loggia, which was built with authentic Roman pantiles: flat tegulae with upturned edges covered by half-round imbrices to make a water seal.

A Cormorant on a post at Peter Pan was panting and fluttering its throat to cool down.

The Great Crested Grebes nesting at the island now have two eggs.

A pair of grebes have stolen the Coots' nest under the Dell restaurant balcony, which the Coots hadn't finished using. Although a grebe can easily dismiss a Coot, the Coots usually win these disputes through dogged persistence.

The Coots in the southeast pool in the Italian Garden ...

... have new neighbours in the northeast pool.

The nest strangely situated in the middle of the Long Water has been built up with reed stems.

The Black Swan seems to have finally given up sitting on the infertile eggs. He was with 4GIQ and their cygnet near the bridge. Probably he has seen her with her original Mute mate and got jealous.

The Pochard and her duckling were at the Vista.

A male Lesser Emperor dragonfly hunted over the water at Peter Pan.

The summer border plants in the Rose Garden are now in, and the bees are making their choices. There were several Honeybees on purple foxgloves.

The repairs to the bridge are now complete and the scaffolding is being taken down. There are two new sections of balustrade in honey-coloured Bath limestone, and the damaged portions at either side have been pieced together and patched.

News of another Little owlet

There are two Little owlets at the Serpentine Gallery. Hao Zhang saw them together. I got a picture of one of them in the sweet chestnut tree ...

... and later their mother in the distant lime tree where the parents are staying during the daytime.

There was a family of Song Thrushes behind the Queen's Temple. This is one of the young ones.

An adult by the Speke obelisk was carrying an unidentified and gruesome object.

A Pied Wagtail ...

... and a Grey Wagtail were hunting insects on the debris blown into the corner of the lake by the Dell restaurant.

The three young Grey Herons in the nest at the east end of the Serpentine island were exercising their wings in preparation for their first flight.

The Great Crested Grebe at the island sat peacefully on her nest. She didn't get up, so I couldn't see whether she has laid another egg.

The Coots in the fountain pool in the Italian Garden were feeding their three chicks on the nest.

The Mute Swan 4GIQ's original mate came over to help look after the hybrid cygnet. He doesn't seem to mind that it isn't his, and the Black Swan is not taking much notice of them. I was told that he used to have the plastic ring 4FUM, but the glue failed and it fell off, so now he has only a metal ring.

The Pochard and her duckling came over to the Vista ...

... where a female Gadwall was having a brisk wash ...

... and flap.

A Comma butterfly perched in hypericum blossom at Mount Gate.

There was nothing unusual in the Rose Garden, but hordes of Buff-Tailed Bumblebees are still busy on the patches of stachys.

Ahmet Amerikali was at Rainham Marshes, where he got pictures of an Avocet ...

... and a female Linnet ...

... and the famous Cuckoo almost got away from him.