Inherited eyebrows

The male Little Owlet at the Serpentine Gallery looked down from a lime tree ...

... and his father was in another. The grandfather, who nested here until last year, was a tiny owl with tremendous eyebrows, and these show in his male descendants.

A family of Chiffchaffs flew around in the Flower Walk. This is one of the parents in a magnolia, looking worn after raising the young ones.

A Long-Tailed Tit perched on the top of the corkscrew hazel bush.

A Wood Pigeon bathed in the Serpentine, taking care not to get out of its depth. Unlike Feral Pigeons, they can't take off from water and if they find themselves afloat they have to row laboriously ashore with the wrist joints on their wings.

A Grey Heron stood on an ivy-wrapped dead branch beside the Long Water.

A young Black-Headed Gull played with a grass stem on a post at Peter Pan.

There's no progress at the Great Crested Grebes' nest at the Dell restaurant, but it's been reported that all three chicks are all right and there is still one more egg. All was quiet when I was there and I could only see one chick.

The Coot nesting at the bridge, whose first chick was taken by Pigeon Eater, now has another.

Sad to say, the Mute Swan 4DTT on the Long Water has lost one of her two cygnets. The survivor was with her at Peter Pan, flapping its tiny wings.

The Tufted ducklings dived busily at Fisheman's Keep, picking up strands of alage and any small water creatures they find.

The first Willow Emerald damselflies have appeared, and there were four pairs at the bridge.

A Red-Veined Darter dragonfly perched on a dry grass stem beside the Round Pond.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee worked over a zinnia in the Rose Garden.

There were plenty of butterflies here. A Painted Lady fed on a Verbena bonariensis flower ...

... and a Red Admiral on sea lavender ...

... where there was also a Comma.

A Small White was on another verbena flower ...

... and a Meadow Brown on Black-Eyed Susan.

Another Red Admiral perched on printed water mint on a notice beside the Long Water.

Dunlin at the Round Pond

A straying Dunlin has turned up on the gravel strip in the Round Pond. Strays usually arrive here rather than on the main lake, as the pond is on a small hill and the ground around it is open so it can be seen from the air at a distance. The lake is in a valley and surrounded by trees, so much less visible. This is only the third Dunlin I've seen in the park.

The Mandarin here still has ten ducklings, and was sheltering them on the gravel strip. The restless little creatures soon wandered off.

This Tufted Duck on the Serpentine island hatched her ducklings some way off on the Long Water. She still has two, which are now quite large and out of danger from the Herring Gulls.

The younger Tufted Duck family were out of sight under the boat hire platform, but one of the ducklings strayed out on to the open water. Luckily mo Herring Gull noticed, and it soon went back under the platform.

A skein of Canada Geese flew past the Lido restaurant, limbering up with their newly regrown flight feathers. The geese that came to the lake to moult will soon fly away.

There are now three Great Crested Grebe chicks in the nest under the Dell restaurant balcony. That may be all, as I couldn't see the fourth egg.

This is how a grebe gets the chicks off its back: it stands up and shakes them. One was still hanging on as the other two tumbled down the nest.

The female went into the water and caught two fish. They were too large to feed to the new chicks, so she ate them herself.

The Moorhen in the Dell  was looking resentful ...

... because a Grey Heron had evicted it from its favourite rock.

A young heron played with a twig at the island. This is one from one of the early nests ...

... as all the young ones from the fourth nest at the east end of the island had returned, waiting to be fed by their parents.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was in the lime tree where her mate usually goes ...

... because both the owlets were in her usual lime and she didn't want to be pestered by them.

A Carrion Crow stared challengingly from a tree in the Dell.

It was a cloudy day and cooler than recently, but the bees in the Rose Garden were still active. A Common Carder browsed on sea lavender ...

... and a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee chose the agapanthus clump ...

... where there was also a little Marmalade Fly.

A second grebe chick

The Great Crested Grebes nesting under the balcony of the Dell restaurant now have two chicks. When one fell off the nest, the parent on the water let it climb aboard.

The nest on the island was a peaceful scene. It's impossible to tell when this third attempt on the site really got under way, so we don't know when hatching will start.

Ahmet Amerikali got a picture of a grebe on the Serpentine swallowing a fair-sized fish. There should still be plenty of little ones for the chicks.

The Coots nesting by the bridge had one chick yesterday, but today it was gone. That seems to be the work of Pigeon Eater, who was perched on a nearby post. One Coot defied him, while the other was turning the eggs. One egg had a hole in the shell and may have been about to hatch.

With five Grey Heron nests on the island, the park is full of herons of various ages. This is one from the fourth nest at the east end of the island, now exploring the shore but still returning to the nest to be fed.

It's hard to see anything in the fifth nest, which is in a treetop, but the young herons are often heard begging and you sometimes get a glimpse of an untidy bundle of feathers through the leaves.

An adult examined the wooden finial on the roof of one of the boathouses.

Ahmet photographed the inhabitant of the Italian Garden hauling up a carp with a large hank of algae, which had to be discarded before the fish could be swallowed. This heron has a distinctive yellow patch in front of its eye.

The resident Cormorant was taking a break to dry its wings.

The male Little Owl looked out from his usual lime tree. I haven't seen an owlet for some time. They may already have been kicked out to fend for themselves. Things happen fast with Little Owls.

The young Green Woodpecker nearby, which we've seen before begging from a parent, found an ants' nest by itself and was eating the unfortunate inhabitants.

Few small birds were visible, but the Great Tit pair in the Dell ...

... and the young Robin at Mount Gate came out for pine nuts.

There are still plenty of Emperor dragonflies at the Italian Garden. A male was hunting under the parapet ...

... and a female laid eggs in a patch of algae.

There are reports of red and yellow dragonflies, presumably males and females of some kind of Darter, around a dead tree on the east side of the Long Water a short way north of the bridge, just short of the place where the path forks. I waited for a while but wasn't lucky.

A Peacock butterfly, a Comma and a Red Admiral fed on a clump of sea lavender in the Rose Garden.

A Greenbottle fly's idea of party time.

The 'blue-green algae' -- actually cyanobacteria -- are back around the Lido just three days after it was declared clear and reopened. I pointed this out to the staff who, to their credit, closed the swimming area.

Comparing owls

The Great Crested Grebe chick in the nest under the Dell restaurant was given a feather by its mother. There still only seems to be one, but that is not a cause for alarm as grebes start incubating their eggs as soon as the first one is laid, so they hatch over a period of several days. This doesn't matter to grebes, as the young can be fed on the nest for several days till the last one hatches.

The grebe at the island was turning the eggs. Four can be seen, the usual number though sometimes they lay five.

The Coots nesting at the bridge have hatched their first chick.

Two Coots were fighting in the Italian Garden.

The Black Swan was feeling better today and hurried over for some sunflower hearts.

Pigeon Eater and his mate were away from their usual place at the Dell restaurant and there were four Lesser Black-Backed Gulls on the roof, plus a young one which was in the water begging its parents to feed it. Numbers are visibly going up as they are starting to breed in town, but they have nothing like the big Herring Gull colony at Paddington.

Two of the young Grey Herons from the east end of the island were back in their nest. Though now wandering freely they are not independent yet, and return to the nest to be fed.

The third had gone up to look at the fifth nest, where the chicks are much younger. They are begging noisily whenever they see their parents, so you can see why it had wanted to investigate. The parents were away; otherwise it would have been chased off.

An adult strolled through the tunnel under the bridge. It seems odd to see a bird in a tunnel ...

... but on that subject David Lacey, who has sent us pictures from the park, was in Córdoba in Argentina, where he found a family of Burrowing Owls and sent this picture. They usually nest in burrows left by ground squirrels and other small burrowing mammals. The resemblance to our closely related Little Owls is considerable, though they have longer legs.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was in his usual lime tree. In treeless areas Little Owls will also nest in burrows, or in holes in walls.

Theodore found a fallen primary feather from the Peregrines on the Imperial College belltower.

A young Pied Wagtail looked for insects on the platform where the electric boats are charged. The grooves in the non-slip planking collect bird droppings which attract insects, so it's a good hunting ground.

A family of Magpies were horsing around on the edge of the Dell stream.

A Jay near the Italian Garden waited for a peanut.

A Carrion Crow had won two slices of chorizo picante sausage from a pizza. Probably a human had discarded them because there was too much chilli, but birds can't taste the hotness of chilli and are unaffected,

Another Jersey Tiger moth appeared near the Italian Garden. It's unlikely that the damage to the oak leaves was caused by the caterpillar of one of these moths, as they prefer softer leaves such as nettles and willow.

A Honeybee browsed on a Busy Lizzie in the Flower Walk ...

... and a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee fed on knapweed behind the Lido.