Three Grey Heron chicks

The new Grey Heron chicks in the east end of the island were standing up, and you can just see that there are three of them.

A Herring Gull ...

... and a Lesser Black-Back by the Round Pond were vying for the remains of a Feral Pigeon. You can see that not much is left, so it looks as if this is one of Pigeon Eater's leftovers snatched from the edge of the Serpentine.

Pigeon Eater was at his usual station washing his face, as he always does after a bloody breakfast.

A hungry young Carrion Crow by the bridge wouldn't let its parent have a moment's peace.

Crows are no respecters of royalty, or anyone else.

A Jackdaw waited patiently on a branch for me to finish photographing and give it a peanut.

Ahmet Amerikali got a good picture of a young Goldcrest in the Dell.

A young Starling looking for insects in a pot of stonecrop at the Lido restaurant eyed a Honeybee flying overhead.

The six new Coot chicks in the Italian Garden fountain were passed by three teenagers from the other family. One rteurned and gave a chick a bad-tempered peck.

The six Mute cygnets were on the Long Water with their mother. One of them flapped its tiny wings. Swans' wings develop slowly, and they can't fly till some time after they have grown to full size. This is just as well, as they are clumsy in the air and any juvenile exploration would probably end in a crash.

The smallest Mandarin duckling on the Round Pond had wandered off as usual and was standing on the edge while its mother hurried to catch up with it.

The Mallard family were taking it easy.

Duncan Campbell got a remarkable video. A Common Wasp scrapes off fragments of wood, mixes them with saliva, and rolls them into a ball which it will carry off to add to its nest. Their neatly made and durable papier-mâché nests can be a foot across or more.

A patch of Woolly Yarrow in the Rose Garden attracted a Colletes bee of unknown species, of which there are a lot all over the garden.

It was joined by a Batman Hoverfly.

Tom was at Abberton reservoir near Colchester, where he found two spectacular butterflies, a Purple Hairstreak ...

... and a Purple Emperor.

Yet more Grey Heron chicks

The Grey Herons in the nest at the east end of the Serpentine island have already bred this year and raised three chicks. Now they've nested again and have more. I could see two from the shore.

A young heron by the Lido picked a small insect off the water.

The usual male Chaffinch in Kensington Gardens presented himself in the fallen blossom under a chestnut tree.

A Jackdaw sidled up to apply for a peanut. They are always polite, unlike Carrion Crows.

A Rose-Ringed Parakeet picked up a fallen crabapple on the path near the Steiner bench.

A handsome white and grey Feral Pigeon fluffed himself up before strutting around in front of a female.

Pigeon Eater spotted a pigeon that wasn't paying attention, but it woke up in time and eluded his lunge.

A Pied Wagtail sprinted around in the parched grass beside the Round Pond.

It caught a small larva.

The six Mallard ducklings are already wise to the ways of the park, and when they see someone eating his lunch on a bench they come ashore and tout for a share.

The smallest Mandarin ducking is growing noticeably now, but it has a long way to go.

A Red-Crested Pochard drake, still in breeding plumage, rested at the Triangle.

I could see 25 Gadwalls from one viewpoint at the Vista, the most we've ever had in the park.

This is the white Greylag that doesn't have a mate. It's probably a sibling of the one with a normal grey mate, but you don't see them together.

Tinúviel sent this remarkable picture of a Great Crested Grebe chick carrying a smaller one on its back. I don't know where it was taken. Update: she thinks it was in Huesca in northeastern Spain.

I've seen young Moorhens helping to feed younger ones from their parents' second brood, but this is more puzzling. Moorhens don't spend much time feeding their chicks which soon begin to forage for themselves, so they can easily breed twice or even three times a year. Not so with grebes: it takes a pair of Great Crested Grebes more than three months to raise their young to the point where they can feed themselves, and during this time nesting is impossible. So here the mystery is not that an older chick is happy to carry a younger one -- I think that's a basic instinct -- but where the younger chick came from. The difference between the two looks like a month or six weeks. I can only suppose that it's from different parents, got lost, and was adopted.

A Honeybee fed on a snowberry flower on the east side of the Long Water.

A Lesser Stag Beetle crossed the path below.

A Small White butterfly perched on a knapweed flower at the back of the Lido.

The Little Owls' quiet place

When owls have young they often retreat to a nearby tree to avoid being bothered by them. I knew from previous years that the Little Owls at the Serpentine Gallery liked a particular lime tree, and have been checking it. Today the female could be seen on a branch.

A young Robin in the Flower Walk ...

... noticed that its parent was carrying food.

The young Great Tits are all independent now and their insistent begging has ceased. The parents, tattered and exhausted, can relax for another year.

The Blackbirds between the Queen's Temple and the Round Pond have also been feeding young. The male was under a lime tree and seemed quite unhurried, so maybe his fledglings are independent too. I haven't seen or heard them and don't know where the nest is.

A Pied Wagtail at the Round Pond looked suspiciously at the camera.

It was windy and the three Mandarin ducklings were sheltering in the lee of their mother on the gravel strip. All were having a preen.

The Mallards were circling the pond briskly.

Greylag Geese saw a dog in the distance and quickly trotted to the edge of the water. They're moulting and flightless and have to be very careful.

The three small Egyptian Geese are getting their wing feathers.

I thought that two of the six newest Coot chicks in the Italian Garden fountains were gone, but they were just hiding in the planters and today they were all out chasing their parents.

The Coot on the nest at the bridge stood up and turned round  before settling back down on the eggs. This nest has almost no chance of success, with Herring Gulls perching on the nearby posts.

The Mute Swan at the landing stage, still sitting on dud eggs after two months, has to realise soon that it's hopeless. The one at the Lido restaurant terrace has now given up.

A rat looked out from the railings near the Steiner bench beside the Long Water. This is where people feed the Rose-Ringed Parakeets, and the rats have grown fat and sleek on the spillages. They can scare off the squirrels in spite of being smaller.

On 1 June there was a report of a Red-Veined Darter dragonfly at the Round Pond, and I've been looking for it ever since. The day before yesterday I saw something red speeding away over the water, too distant to identify. Today one obligingly settled for a few seconds on the path. The gravel rolled into the tarmac doesn't make a good background, but dragonflies like sun-warmed gravel so that's where you often find them.

A Common Blue Damselfly at Peter Pan preferred a warm iron chain. You can see from the very light rusting on this old chain that it's made of wrought iron. Steel would have crumbled away by now.

There used to be a long stretch of orange day lilies on the edge of the reed bed by the Diana fountain, but the spreading reeds have taken over and only a few flowers are left. One of them had a small hoverfly in it. When I was photographing it, I thought from its alternate thick and thin black stripes that it was a Marmalade Fly, but the pattern seems too light and simple and I don't know what it is.

Two Comma butterflies were chasing each other at Mount Gate. One settled on a hypericum bud and gave a good impression of a withered dead leaf.

Kingfisher on the Long Water

Today's best sighting was of a Kingfisher on the Long Water by the Italian Garden. It's a male, as you can tell from its all-black bill -- females have an orange lower mandible. These occasional visitors are usually seen here only in winter.

Pigeon Eater, in his usual spot by the Dell restaurant, consumed as much of his latest victim as he wanted and left the remains for a Carrion Crow which had been watching from a safe distance. The difference in styles is very obvious. The gull doesn't use his feet to hold the pigeon down, and has to drag it around awkwardly. The crow just plants a strong foot on it and can rip pieces off with ease. Probably Pigeon Eater could use his foot, which is by no means weak, but the idea simply hasn't occurred to him.Maybe he should watch a crow at work.

The Grey Heron at the island that has been seen lying down on one of the wire baskets at the island can stand up, and in fact I saw it flying in. Its behaviour had been a bit worrying, but it seems to be absolutely OK.

Great Crested Grebes have been hanging around the collapsed willow next to the bridge, but they show absolutely no sign of wanting to nest.

Nor do the ones on the Serpentine. It would be a sad year without a sight of their stripy chicks. But there is still time, as they usually start late.

Two of the Red-Crested Pochard drakes were also under the bridge. There hasn't been a female here at any time this year. These aren't migrants; they fly in from the other London parks more or less at random. Some years ago a pair nested near Peter Pan and successfully raised to young, the only time as far as I know that they have ever bred in the park.

The newest Coot chicks in the Italian Garden are down from six to four, and surprisingly the older family on the pool seem to have lost one of the eight. It looks as if they've been fighting.

The undersized Mandarin duckling on the Round Pond may be the runt of the brood, but it attracted cries of admiration from a watching child.

The Mallard family sprawled on the edge.

A Mute Swan with pink feet rather than black is known as a 'Polish' swan. 'Polish' cygnets are white rather than the normal grey. The gene for this mutation is recessive and sex-linked, so that usually only females have the 'Polish' appearance, and males with the gene are normal-looking. Only if a male swan gets the gene from both parents will he have pink feet. The name dates from the early 19th century when swans were still eaten, and swans were imported from the Baltic region to increase stocks. Some of these were found to have the mutation.

This swan on the Round Pond is regrowing her flight feathers after moulting, and you can see the emerging primaries.

A Greylag Goose on the Serpentine, one of the regular visitors that come to moult in June, has an unusual amount of white on its face, and several times has been misreported as a White-Fronted Goose.

Four pictures taken by Ahmet Amerikali at Rainham Marshes show the difficulty of identifying birds that don't look like their picture in the book. This is a Whitethroat, but its throat isn't particularly white. I think from its vague soft markings that it's a young one.

This Whitethroat has much bolder markings, but the yellow edges of its bill seem to show that it too is a young bird.

This is clearly a female Linnet, lacking the pink front of the male.

But this one has unusually strong markings on its back for a Linnet. There are finches with stronger markings than Linnets, such as Redpolls, but they all have smaller bills so I think this has to be a Linnet. However, I may be wrong about any or all of these. Update: Tom has identified the one below as a juvenile Linnet.

Another slightly uncertain identification: a Black-Tailed Skimmer dragonfly on the railings in the Dell. I think this is a female that has lost its early yellow and black markings and gone a dull colour.

Anyway, there is no doubt about this male Emperor dragonfly in a fine shot by Ahmet.

There are lots of Comma butterflies all round the park. This one was in the Dell.

The spiky flowers in the eryngium patch near the Lido were crowded with Honeybees and Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.