Migrant Hawker dragonfly

The Little Grebe family had returned to the reeds on the east side of the Long Water.

The three newest Great Crested Grebe chicks on the Long Water are now large enough to come out from the shelter of the poplar tree on to the open water.

The single chick on the Serpentine was begging so insistently that even its loving mother lost patience and gave it the push.

The teenage grebe was resting on the swan nesting raft again. It was content to share it with the Mute Swan 4GIX, but when 4FUF climbed aboard as well that was too much, and it left hastily.

One of the cygnets on the Serpentine was preening a wing. It doesn't have any flight feathers yet. Swans' wings develop very late in their growth.

Two of the four Egyptian goslings at Fisherman's Keep had wandered off and were begging for crumbs from the passers by. They ignored their mother calling them back, and in the end she had to come and round them up.

The teenage Mandarin was also begging at the Vista, and people were making quite a fuss of him.

A young Grey Wagtail was hunting along the edge of the Lido restaurant terrace.

A Starling whistled and nattered on a chair while waiting for a chance to raid a table.

There was a Wood Pigeon in an olive tree at the end of the terrace. It does have some olives, but they look too hard and unripe even for a Wood Pigeon to eat.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was in the big plane tree.

The Jay family were here too. One of the young ones followed me to the Albert Memorial.

The familiar Robin was waiting on the railings in the Flower Walk.

A Blue Tit searched for insects on a branch at the northwest corner of the bridge.

As usual, the Great Tits in the corkscrew hazel in the Dell ...

... were followed by the Coal Tits. This is the female of the pair, with little white flecks above her eyes.

A male Migrant Hawker dragonfly rested on a grass seed head by the Italian Garden. It's the first I've seen here this year.

There are still some Willow Emerald damselflies. These were on the railings at the southeast corner of the bridge.

Grebe out of the water

The Little Grebes on the Long Water were catching small fish at a prodigious rate to feed their four chicks.

A Great Crested Grebe farther up the lake caught a pike.

It was politely offered to a chick but was obviously too large, so the parent ate it.

The number of pike on the lake is certainly going up, and they are now often seen among the prey of the grebes and Cormorants. Ahmet Amerikali took this picture yesterday.

On the posts at the bridge a Cormorant vainly tried to dry its wings during a shower.

The single grebe chick on the Serpentine stretched its wings. The flight feathers are just beginning to come out.

You seldom see a Great Crested Grebe out of the water, but the teenager on the Serpentine had climbed on to the swans' nesting raft to preen.

The young Mandarin drake was preening at the Vista.

A odd combination on the fallen poplar at the Vista: a Cormorant, a Pochard, a Tufted Duck, a young Grey Wagtail and a Yellow-Bellied Slider terrapin.

The first Shovellers have returned. Three could be seen on the Long Water.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was out in the big plane tree.

Rain softened the hard ground enough for the Starlings to hunt for wireworms.

When the Great Tits come out in the corkscrew hazel bush in the Dell ...

... the Coal Tits notice and turn up to take pine nuts from the railings.

A Blue Tit waited in the Flower Walk.

Three more pictures from Ahmet: a Willow Warbler ...

... and a young Chiffchaff both in the scrub at the east end of the Lido ...

... and a Goldcrest in a holly tree at the southwest corner of the bridge.

Missing a moth

There were no surprises today, but everything seemed to be going well. The male Little Owl at the Serpentine reappeared in the big plane tree after his absence in yesterday's rain.

A Jay waited for a peanut on the railings by the bridge.

A young Pied Wagtail hunted insects in the debris at the edge of the Serpentine.

A Cormorant preened and flapped on what looks like a very uncomfortable perch on the edge of a piece of wire mesh, but it seemed not to mind.

The four Little Grebe chicks were in the middle of the Long Water waiting for their parents to turn up with fish. They are remarkably loud for such small birds and can be heard a hundred yards away.

The three Great Crested Grebe chicks were under the poplar with their mother. They're still too young to move far from the nest.

The two chicks on the Serpentine were at Fisherman's Keep.

The single oldest chick was also here, but no one has seen the family from the nest of the island. Sato wondered whether they had moved to the Long Water, but I think that these chicks would be larger than the Long Water ones.

The teenage grebe was by the swan nesting raft at the Triangle, where it has been seen several times before, probably looking for fish in the shadow of the raft.

The raft had its usual crew of the Mute Swan 4GIX, a pair of Moorhens and a Coot.

The two cygnets were at the Dell restaurant, looking bright and active with no sign that one of them had been ill.

The single cygnet on the Long Water was begging by itself at the Vista ...

... where there was also a Mandarin teenager, clearly a drake as its bill is already pink. It seems likely that this is one hatched on the Long Water rather than one of the Round Pond eleven, as there was no sign of any others.

A Hummingbird Hawk Moth was flying around the herbaceous borders in the Rose Garden, but it wouldn't stop for an instant and I didn't get a picture of it. I had to be content with a very ordinary Batman Hoverfly on a strawflower.

A spear thistle by the Italian Garden attracted a Common Drone Fly ...

... and a Common Carder bee, of which there are a great many at the moment.

The dwarf pomegranate bushes in the giant flower pots at the Lido restaurant are fruiting well.

Just up the path to the east there has been an outburst of exoticism, with a persimmon ...

... and a grapefruit. There's no chance of them ripening in the English climate.

Proper English weather at last

It was a dull day with occasional drizzle and there was little to see.

The two Great Crested Grebe chicks on the Serpentine are now actively learning to fish, diving after their parents and having little expeditions on their own. One scared a Coot by surfacing under it.

The new family on the Long Water were still under the poplar tree. They are hard to spot at that distance, and the way to find them  is to wait till a parent diving under the bridge ...

... catches a fish and takes it up to the chicks. Here one of them is still riding on its mother's back.

The Little Grebes were nearer under the willow by the bridge. Two of the chicks came out when a parent arrived with a fish.

The teenage Little Grebe appeared on the Serpentine again, diving busily. It did its characteristic jump and shrug mentioned by Jame Austen in Persuasion. Describing Louisa recovering after her accident, she wrote, 'If one happens only to shut the door a little hard, she starts and wriggles like a young dab-chick in the water.'

The Moorhen chick at the island went for a stroll with a parent.

A Moorhen on the ruined raft at the Triangle came recklessly close to a Mute Swan.

The Egyptian goslings at Fisherman's Keep were in a cosy huddle.

A lot of Egyptians had come out from the lake and were browsing on the lawn east of the Dell, and there were four in the Rose Garden. The pair that live by the Huntress fountain here are usually very territorial, but peace reigned for a moment. It's going to take a while for the grass to recover.

A Cormorant made itself comfortable on the clump of grass in the wire basket at the island.

Another dried its wings on a post at the bridge in an interval between showers.

The Czech Black-Headed Gull was patrolling its territory at Fisherman's Keep.

In spite of the weather there were people on the terrace of the Lido restaurant, and the Starlings were waiting for their chance.

A very late young Robin in the Rose Garden caught a fly in a flower bed.

The male Coal Tit came out in the yew tree at the southeast corner of the Dell, lured by pine nuts on the railings.

A Jackdaw applied for a peanut on the shore by the island ...

... and a Jay waited on a fallen trunk by the Serpentine Gallery, but the Little Owls were staying in their hole.

It wasn't a day for seeing many insects, but the hardy Common Carder bees were at work on the pink stonecrop in the Rose Garden.