Robin singing again

A Robin in the Flower Walk has started to sing again after its summer break, still a bit quietly. It will sing all autumn and winter right through to next summer.

The Robin in the Rose Garden shrubbery came out for some pine nuts.

Encouraged by a slight drizzle, which brings up the worms, two young Blackbirds in the Dell started to forage around a rock.

Blackbirds were in evidence in the Flower Walk too, with a female in a flower bed ...

... a young one in the corkscrew hazel bush ...

... and another female on top of the bush (though it's possibly the same as the first one which had flown round while I was photographing the second).

Starlings clustered around some edible object in the Diana fountain enclosure.

A Jay effortlessly crushed a peanut with its powerful bill. It's odd that Carrion Crows, which are bigger and stronger, don't do this instead of laboriously pecking a hole in the shell.

A male Great Spotted Woodpecker flew into a tree in the leaf yard.

It was quite windy at the Round Pond and the female Little Owl was staying in her hole again, but she did obligingly come to the front to have her picture taken.

One of the young Grey Herons stood above the nest where its sibling was sulking as usual.

The posts in the Long Water where the tern raft was moored have become a favourite place for Cormorants.

The Coot on the new nest in the Italian Garden was looking very comfortable.

The Black Swan on the Serpentine took advantage of the drizzle to have a preen.

A fairly large pale bee landed on a ragwort on Buck Hill and stuck its antennae into the flower, apparently smelling it. It quickly flew away, revealing a dark tip to its abdomen. Conehead 54 thinks it's probably a faded Common Carder.

The Huntress fountain in the Rose Garden is finally working again. It had been restored at huge expense, including a large new upper bowl of multicoloured marble, and was finished last August. A soon as it was switched on it was apparent that the lower bowl was leaking slightly, with water trickling over the path. It only ran for a couple of weeks and then either went wrong or was turned off. It has been lying idle for eleven months and was only started again today.

The fountain, featuring the goddess Diana, was originally made for the garden of Sir Walter Palmer's house Frognal at Ascot in 1899. Evidently Lady Palmer thought it was improper, because as soon as he died she gave it to the park, where it was set up in 1906. The sculptor was Lady Feodora Gleichen, the first female member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. The Art Nouveau style of the fountain is unusual in London, being much more of a French and German thing.

Fallen Purple Loosestrife petals added a touch of colour to a swirl of slime and algae in one of the Italian Garden pools.

A visit from a male Kestrel

A Kestrel perched in a tree at the top of Buck Hill, and surprisingly it turned out to be male. We're used to the resident female who hunts here, but as far as I know she hasn't had a mate since 2018.

The sky over the hill was full of House Martins. This would have just been a visiting party, as August is too early for them to be massing for migration.

A Wren appeared in the bushes at the bottom of the hill.

A female Blackcap flitted around in the brambles near Peter Pan.

It's impossible to get past the south end of the bridge without being mobbed by the large family of Great Tits living in the bushes.

When you see Stock Doves they're usually in trees, but this one had come down to forage on the grass near the Queen's Temple.

A Carrion Crow stood on the wall in front of Zaha Hadid's giant plastic excrescence and gave it a critical look.

Most of the Pied Wagtails at the Round Pond are young and still in juvenile grey plumage. Evidently they've had a good breeding year, nesting in holes in the masonry of Kensington Palace.

It was quite windy and the female Little Owl was staying in her hole.

The sun-warmed woodland of the park creates strong upcurrents of warm air, and gulls assemble here in the late afternoon to gain as much height as possible before gliding off to their roosts for the night. These are mostly Black-Headed Gulls with a few larger Herring Gulls.

The Black-Headed Gull who owns the landing stage by the Diana fountain was late to return this year, but he was there today looking around with a lordly air.

The timid young Grey Heron at the island was still lurking in the nest. Its sibling was out of sight, probably exploring the bushes below.

A thick and smelly carpet of algae covers the north end of the Long Water. A heron wandered through it hoping to see a fish in a gap.

The bits of clear water at the edge are covered with duckweed. This Moorhen is often seen under the dead willow tree.

The Great Crested Grebe chicks at the island are growing fast and getting loud.

This drake on the Serpentine is a hybrid between a Common Pochard and a Tufted Duck. It looks superficially like a Pochard, but note the two-tone grey of the body feathers with the same pattern as the black and white of a Tufted drake, the colour of the head which is brown rather than ginger, and the orange eye halfway between the red of a Pochard and the yellow of a Tufted. This is quite a common hybrid and we've had several in the park over the years.

A Speckled Wood butterfly rested in the dappled sunlight of the Rose Garden shrubbery.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee hung from a scabious flower at the back of the Lido, holding on with its anchor-shaped feet.

Drizzly day

It drizzled for most of the time I was out. Raindrops glittered on a spider's web in the Italian Garden.

It was so dull that you could hardly see the far end of the lake. Coots merged into the gloom. At far right you can see some brave souls trying to enjoy themselves on a pedalo.

The killer Mute Swan's family cruised under the bridge on to the Serpentine to upset the peaceful spectacle.

The rain didn't put off the small birds in the Flower Walk. The usual Robin ...

... and Coal Tit ...

... and several Blue Tits turned up for their daily treat.

I accidentally disturbed two Song Thrushes on the ground near the bridge. One flew away, but the other perched in a holly tree and allowed itself to be photographed.

A young Wood Pigeon, still without the white collar of an adult, looked longingly at some blackberries but couldn't reach them.

One of the young Peregrines was preening on the barracks tower.

At the island, the Great Crested Grebe chicks' father brought them a fish which was slightly too large for any of them to manage. After offering it around unsuccessfully ...

... he ate it himself.

The Coot on the new nest in the Italian Garden fountain pool was having a brief break for a snack. The nest must have been built up since Duncan Campbell saw five or six eggs, and I could only get a picture of three.

It returned and and climbed back into the nest ...

... and preened and fussed about before settling down on the eggs.

One of the Mandarin drakes at the Vista took advantage of the raindrops on his feathers to have a through preen.

A young fox in the Dell was looking damp and bedraggled.

Eventually the rain stopped and the male Little Owl at the Round Pond emerged from his hole.

The angry Robin

The Robin in the Flower Walk is certainly my old friend returning after bringing up offspring. It has the same territory and the same habit of mercilessly bullying all the other small birds within reach. Two other Robins could he heard and they were all ticking crossly at one another. This may have been its former mate -- the couple will have split up by now -- and the young one I sometimes see here.

This Great Tit was well out of its way. It's one of the pair that follow me around the Rose Garden, seen here on a climbing rose in the pergola.

As well as the family of Greenfinches near Peter Pan there is another at the southwest corner of the bridge. A young one perched at the top of a holly tree.

A Starling at the Lido restaurant shone in the sunlight as it waited for a chance to grab some scraps off a table.

The female Little Owl at the Round Pond was in her usual place in the small lime tree.

A constant whining noise from the middle of the Serpentine turned out to be a young Lesser Black-Backed Gull begging at an adult, which took no notice.

The adult isn't Pigeon Eater, who is a typical medium grey bird of the western European and British subspecies Larus fuscus graellsii. It's darker than most of the Lesser Black-Backs on the lake -- but not as dark as this one on the posts at Peter Pan, which is nearly black and may be of the northern race L. f. fuscus. Things are complicated by the existence of an intermediate race, L. f. intermedius, which can also be very dark.

The female Great Crested Grebe at the island arrived with a decent-sized perch ...

... and one of the chicks led the rush to grab it.

You often see grebe parents dodging the leading chick and feeding one of the less pushy ones so that they all get their share.

A very short video: usually a Cormorant would scare a Great Crested Grebe away, but when the grebe has chicks to defend it doesn't hesitate to make an underwater charge.

The grebes are no longer taking any interest in their nest, and today it was occupied by a couple of female Mallards.

Two Mute Swans were testing their newly regrown flight feathers.

The Black Swan looked very fine in the sunshine.

One of the young foxes in the Dell was lurking in a patch of long grass.

It emerged with a broken dog lead and trotted off to play with it.

There has been no further sign of the Lesser Emperor dragonflies at the Vista, but a male was hunting under the bridge.

There may also have been one under the Italian Garden, but I didn't get a proper look at it. Later: David Element confirms several here.

A very tattered old Red Admiral butterfly perched on a hemp agrimony flower.