The Mute Swans nesting under the balustrade of the Italian Garden have their first egg.

When I took this picture, both swans had gone to the other end of the Long Water leaving the egg uncovered, very careless of them. Later I found the male swan on the nest while the female was still swanning around near Peter Pan. She needs to become more serious about motherhood.

There are about fifty Herring Gulls on the Serpentine, many of them just coming up to their second summer.

The local breeding colony of Herring Gulls used to be on the roof of Paddington Station, but there has recently been new building here, including a new roof canopy and repairs to one of the original ones, which would have disturbed them. The young birds would have been hatched when the work was still going on, so it is not clear where they are from.

There were at least thirty Pied Wagtails feeding on the Parade Ground. Here one of them cranes his neck to try to catch sight of an insect.

Most of the bushes around the lake have pairs of Long-Tailed Tits in them. This one was near the martial arts bandstand at the bottom of Buck Hill. Their nests are well concealed, and it is a rare even to see one.

A little farther along the path a pair of Robins were looking decorative on a branch laden with catkins.

But they were outshone by this female Great Tit, who had found a perfect background for her fine yellow breast.

I had a diligent search for the Tawny Owls, and still haven't found them.

Another search for owls didn't find any. The people who usually look for the Tawny owlets are not in the park for one reason or another, and it is just me and thousands of trees. They will turn up eventually.

Meanwhile there were other birds to see, including a Treecreeper near the Tawny Owls' tree.

The Jackdaws have extended their territory south to the Flower Walk, where there are fewer Carrion Crows.

Their original area, around the Speke obelisk, is inconveniently close to the big colony of crows in the northwest corner of Kensington Gardens. When I tried to feed the Jackdaws here, crows kept barging in and grabbing their biscuits.

This is one of the crow family near the Italian Garden; it is a junior bird hatched last year. It was shredding a plastic bag which it had got out of a waste bin.

I suppose that this is a novel nesting material. Great Crested Grebes also use plastic bags, whole, in their nests, as they find them easier to build with and more durable than algae.

The pair of Moorhens on the willow near the bridge also seem to be thinking of nesting, as they were climbing up the branches to the hole they use.

The nest site is invisible from below and from the parapet of the bridge. It has been in use for several years.

The Mute Swans on the Long Water have returned to their nest in the reeds near the Italian Gardens. Although they visit the place often, they aren't occupying it continuously; evidently they don't have any eggs yet.

The wooden posts in the lake near Peter Pan, until recently thronged with Black-Headed Gulls, were unoccupied except for this lonely first-year bird which for some reason has not flown off with the others.

There was no sign of any of the owls today. A search of the places where Tawny owlets have been seen in previous years didn't turn up any sign of them. Of course, looking at places where birds were, and not finding them, is an all too familiar task.

 One finding from this search was that there are more Stock Doves, over a wider area of Kensington Gardens, than I had supposed. It is, of course, very easy to mistake them for Feral Pigeons if you aren't looking closely. This is one of a pair investigating a nest hole in an old chestnut tree near the leaf yard.

Another pair have been hanging around the hole in the tree where the Little Owls were seen recently. It seems that they may have won the battle for this desirable nest site.

The birds' drinking fountain near the Tawnies' tree had a crow on it today. This natural cup in the tree mysteriously refuses to dry up, although there has been no rain for a week apart from a brief drizzle yesterday.

Male Blackcaps have been singing around the Long Water. I briefly saw a female in the wooded area on the east shore of the Long Water. These birds are even harder to photograph than Goldcrests and Long-Tailed Tits; all are small and restless, but Blackcaps are also very shy. So you will have to make do with a picture of one of the Long-Tailed Tits in this place.

To follow yesterday's picture of a Coot eating a tomato, here is one on the Serpentine eating a slice of pizza with great enthusiasm. Not only was the food its favourite colour, but it was also full of fat, just what a bird needs to keep its fierce metabolism going.

Another Coot has built a nest between two of the wire baskets that surround the Serpentine island. The space is so small that the bird is having difficulty turning round. But it will also be fairly safe from marauding gulls.

Here are three diving ducks resting on the island: from front to back a Tufted Duck, a Pochard, and a Red-Crested Pochard -- all drakes. From this angle there is some resemblance between the two pochards, which are not closely related. But when they are awake, the bright pink bill of the Red Crested Pochard is unmistakable.

Several Greenfinches are singing their odd wheezing song around the Long Water.

They are usually hard to see, perched in the leaves at the top of a tree, and much the same colour as the leaves. But this one obligingly came out on a bare branch.

On the Long Water opposite, a pair of Great Crested Grebes have a nest in a reasonable state of completion.

It is hard to tell how serious they are about nesting in spring. Grebes that wait till summer before starting, when the fish have spawned and there is plenty to eat, are much more successful on this lake. In this picture you can just see a Coot hanging around, thinking of seizing the nest for its own use, a move which the grebe foiled simply by sitting down. Grebes always win fights for ownership, but Coots are persistent and constantly sneak back.

Another Coot had seen something red floating on the Long Water. Coots love red things, and often use them as nest ornaments.

I think it was a tomato. The Coot pecked it and removed a piece which it ate, but this caused the object to sink.

Another two Coots were fighting.

The one that is jumping on to the other managed to completely submerge it, giving its its opponent no option but to submit as its head was held under water. These fights are seldom as conclusive, and usually both parties give up and content themselves with hostile displays.

Near the Italian Garden a Cormorant in breeding plumage was fishing. It is a symphony in blue, brown, white, black, orange and grubby yellow, set off by turquoise eyes.

But it was the only Cormorant here, so its strange panoply was displayed in vain.

Near the bridge, several Ring-Necked Parakeets were eating catkins.

There was no sign of any of the owls, despite several visits. As soon as there is any news of Tawny owlets, it will be reported here.

Almost all the Black-Headed Gulls have now flown off to their breeding grounds, which may be as distant as Scandinavia or merely a British rubbish dump.

Wrens are building a nest on the wall of the Lido play area. They were carrying leaves around in the ivy, and every now and then the male would run a long the top of the wall, hop into a bush and start singing.

It is probably one of several nests in the area, as male Wrens are polygamous and maintain harems, each female in a nest of her own.

A pair of Goldcrests were also busy in a yew tree next to the path just north of the Henry Moore statue, and the male was singing his trisyllabic song.

A pair of Coots are beginning to build a nest in a clump of irises in one of the Italian Gardens ponds.

If they paused to consider things they would let the irises grow to provide cover. But a Coot's instinct is to chew the plants down to water level. Moorhens are much more sensible and leave the plants standing over their nests. The wire mesh put around the clumps of plants has proved completely ineffective at keeping birds out, and has been smashed down into a messy ruin.

This is what happens to a Coot's nest if it doesn't have proper cover. It was built out on the Long Water north of Peter Pan in a place where an alder tree hung over the water.

The Grey Heron has not only invaded the nest, it is also biting twigs off the tree to provide nesting materials for itself. This is a young bird, and I have not seen it building a nest anywhere. The three heron nests on the Serpentine island seem tro be completely abandoned now.

There are quite a few Red Crested Pochards on both lakes now; these were on the Serpentine near the island, a favourite spot for them.

A couple of days ago I saw six males flying in close formation. Evidently they engage in competitive air displays in the same way as Tufted Ducks.

This Mute Swan is reaching as high as it can for fresh new willow leaves on a tree on the Long Water near the bridge.

A party of swans had come here to eat the leaves, to which they are very partial. The male of the resident pair quickly saw them and chased them back under the bridge.

Willows are a natural source of aspirin. Maybe swans have permanent headaches and that is what makes them so bad-tempered. Probably not.

Two Grey Wagtails were running along the edge of the Serpentine at the east end where it flows into the Dell. They will probably nest under the plank bridge across the waterfall.

The five Jackdaws in Kensington Gardens seem to have formed two pairs and one unfortunate single who is a long way from the nearest Jackdaw of the opposite sex.

They were so interested in each other that they let me walk right under their tree without taking flight as they usually do.

A pair of very ordinary Feral Pigeons were also clearly fond of each other, and a sunny spell showed off the fine iridescence of their neck feathers.

This Black-Headed Gull is from Norway, as the first letter of its plastic ring shows. It is a first-year bird and will have been ringed as a chick.

It was in Kensington Gardens on 27 October last year, has spent the winter here, and will soon be returning to its native land.

The newly found Little Owls would not come out for us to see them; it was a colder day than yesterday and they wouldn't have wanted to sunbathe. The original pair of Little Owls kept stubbornly inside. The only bird of any interest in the area was a Green Woodpecker hunting for bugs in the long grass.

But at least the male Tawny Owl was out in his usual place by 3.30 pm.

This picture shows how the mild weather has brought the horse chestnut tree into leaf early. Let's hope that when the owlets come out they will be visible before they vanish into the foliage.

The Little Owl in the oak tree was ranging up and down inside the hollow branch, frequently calling. Every now and then it would pause to look out. It was not at all clear what was going on.

There was also a Treecreeper climbing the same tree and the one next to it.

This picture shows how the bird uses its stiff tail feathers as a prop to keep it in position when climbing a vertical surface.

Two male Great Spotted Woodpeckers were drumming at each other in the leaf yard.

This one seemed to have lost the contest, because it flew away leaving the other one in place and still drumming.

A pair of Wood Pigeons near the bridge were obviously in love.

There is a post in Africa Gómez' blog The Rattling Crow about the nesting behaviour of Wood Pigeons, with links to other interesting articles by her about their courtship and nesting habits.

A Coot in one of the Italian Garden ponds was deliberately swimming under the full drenching of the fountain, again and again.

Perhaps it finds this a super-efficient way of washing, like a power shower.

In the Long Water nearby, a Mandarin was chasing away a Little Grebe which had been harmlessly minding its own business.

I didn't see the Little Owl near the leaf yard, nor the Tawny Owl. But Wendy saw the Tawny at 10.30 this morning, which means that the owlets aren't out yet. (Neither is her post about today's expedition as I write this, but no doubt it will be up soon.)