Brown Hawker dragonflies

On a hot sunny day the Little Owls near the Round Pond were keeping in the shade. This is the female ...

... and here is the male.

The owlets could be heard but were invisible in the dense horse chestnut leaves.

At the Serpentine Gallery both owlets were visible on the trunk of the sweet chestnut next to their nest tree ...

... and their mother was on a lower branch.

A Mistle Thrush was collecting insects near the Round Pond. So they are nesting again: usually the nest is to the northeast of here not far from the Bayswater Road.

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits worked down the Flower Walk.

A Great Crested Grebe hunted small fish just below the surface at the edge of the lake.

The Coots nesting on the water filter at the Italian Garden have given up and tipped the egg into the water, which they usually do if they detect that it's infertile. A Moorhen contemplated it.

An Egyptian gosling sheltered from the sun under its mother.

While I was taking that picture there was a commotion as a Herring Gull carried off an unfortunate Coot chick.

When I looked back at the Egyptian the other goslings had run for shelter behind her, and no wonder.

Cindy Chen got a fine picture of a Six-Spot Burnet Moth in flight at the Rudolf Steiner bench.

But she only got it just in time, as the gardeners have cut down the beautiful long grass studded with ragwort where they were breeding, destroying the colony. Such events are all too common in the park, where orders are given by people behind desks who never look at what's going on.

Two Brown Hawker dragonflies were chasing each other around near the bridge. They were more or less impossible to photograph, but I just managed to grab a record shot.

The Emperor dragonflies at the Italian Garden are easier, though still a bit of a challenge.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee's pollen bags were filled to bursting with pollen from a clump of Verbena bonariensis in the Flower Walk.

East of the Lido Honeybees and a Vestal Cuckoo Bee browsed on the peculiar spiky flower heads of Eryngium, also called Sea Holly.

Worn feathers

The Great Tits in the Flower Walk are looking very worn after raising their young.

So is the familiar female Coal Tit. But they were all coming down enthusiastically to take pine nuts from my hand.

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits passed over the tops of the holly trees. This one doesn't have a very long tail, but all the small birds are looking tatty at the moment. They will regrow their feathers in the autumn.

This Chaffinch at the leaf yard is a familiar sight, but dreadfully hard to photograph. He absolutely refuses to pose nicely for his picture.

A Jay was angling for a peanut.

A finely multicoloured pigeon perched on the bulbous base of a cork oak.

A pair fondled each other on a post at Peter Pan. As so often, they had gone for a mate exactly the same colour as themselves.

A Little owlet looked down from the tree near the Serpentine Gallery.

Here is its mother on the next tree.

The male at the Round Pond was on a favourite branch which gives him a good view.

Another excellent picture by Cindy Chen of him in flight.

The young Grey Herons at the west end of the island are beginning to be quite easily visible, but they haven't yet go to the stage where they leave the nest and climb around in the branches.

A young Coot tried to help its parent add willow twigs to the nest at the bridge, but had little idea of how to do it.

The Coot nesting on the old water filter under the Italian Garden still only has one egg to replace the two it lost. It seems to have finally run out of steam, which is unusual for one of these tireless birds.

A young Egyptian Goose displayed fully developed wing feathers, but it will be a while before it starts running around trying to fly.

Blondie has regrown her flight feathers. She can probably fly now, but is the most sedentary creature imaginable. As usual she was only a few yards from the place where she was hatched at the east end of the Serpentine.

Most of the white butterflies in the park are Small or Green-Veined. Conehead 54 tells me that this is a female Green-Veined White, but it looks far from typical with very large dark spots and an unusually pale abdomen.

Eight Little Owls

I hope you aren't getting bored with Little Owls, as to me they are a source of endless delight. Today I saw eight of them.

This is the male near the Round Pond on the dead tree where the pair nested ...

... and here are his mate ...

... and one of the owlets.

This video shows the complete family: the male on the nest tree with one of the owlets looking out of another hole at the top, the female in a horse chestnut tree, and the other two owlets in different horse chestnuts.

Cindy Chen captured this splendid shot of the male in flight.

At the Serpentine Gallery, the female has taken to perching on the sweet chestnut tree next to the one where she nested, which keeps her a reasonable distance from the incessantly demanding owlets.

They were both on the nest tree, begging loudly.

Only the male isn't showing up, and as far as I know no one has seen him. I'm sure he's around, as it takes two parents to keep two hungry owlets fed with worms and beetles. Probably he has a favourite perch on a nearby tree that we haven't found.

A Long-Tailed Tit paused for a moment on a dead tree near the bridge.

Mark Williams sent this pleasing picture of two young Jays.

An elderly and faded Carrion Crow took it easy on a concrete bench at the Dell restaurant.

A crow near the leaf yard enjoyed a bit of apple stolen from the people feeding the parakeets, but was bothered by a Wood Pigeon which got part of his food.

Farther up the hill, a couple of crows harassed a Grey Heron perched on the fence, forcing it to fly away.

Many of the moulting geese have now completely regrown their wing feathers and are airworthy again. You can see the new primaries crossed over this Greylag's tail.

Honeybees collected nectar and pollen from a cardoon flower -- an odd thing halfway between a thistle and an artichoke.

A Common Carder Bee browsed on a Bird's-Foot Trefoil flower.

This is a still taken from a video I put up on Sunday. I identified the bee as a Honeybee, but Duncan Campbell points out that it isn't, and its bold stripes indicate a different species. Can anyone identify it?

Another puzzle: a bundle of web about a foot long in a hawthorn tree near the Rose Garden. Clearly it encloses some kind of larvae that are feeding on the leaves inside, but it isn't like the all-enveloping webs of Ermine Micromoths that are seen covering bushes in Hyde Park. Does anyone know what made it?

Update: Mario think it's the Hawthorn Moth, Scythropia crataegella, though he can't be certain just from a photograph.

Blackcap still singing

A male Blackcap sang near the leaf yard ...

... and a female flitted about in a motheaten tree near the bridge.

A family of Long-Tailed Tits were in the next tree, a red-leafed cherry.

Back at the leaf yard, a female Chaffinch could be seen in the bushes ...

... and a Jackdaw stared from a post, waiting for a peanut which of course it got.

So did a Jay beside the Long Water ...

... where the Wood Pigeon pair near the Steiner bench perched together on a twig.

There were good views of the Little Owls. Here is the male near the Round Pond, who gave a warning call ...

... one of the owlets in the same tree ...

... and another looking out of the nest hole in the dead tree.

The female adult at the Serpentine Gallery was out on a branch ...

... and one of the owlets was near the nest hole. The other could be heard but not seen.

A Cormorant at the island climbed on to a post and shook and flapped itself dry.

I'm not sure what this young Coot at the bridge thought it was doing, but it looks like just playing.

Moorhens delight in balancing and climbing.

Two Burnet Moths confronted each other on a ragwort flower head. I'm not sure whether this was a territorial display or whether they just happened to be in the same place.

The Stachys in the Rose Garden attracts butterflies as well as bees. Here is a Small White.

Two days ago we had a video of a Bumblebee and I wasn't sure whether it was Buff-Tailed or White-Tailed -- the former can have white tails too. But this one on a knapweed flower is definitely White-Tailed, as shown by the bright yellow of its stripes.