The pair of Peregrines were on the Knightsbridge Barracks. The male is on the left. He only looked over the edge occasionally, and it looked as if he was eating a pigeon farther back on the ledge.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull had had as much of his as he wanted, and was standing on the edge of the lake ...

... tolerantly allowing a young Herring Gull to finish the remains.

A pair of Magpies perched in a hawthorn tree. Hawthorns are particularly popular with all insect-eating birds, and must contain more bugs than other trees.

The usual Robin in the Flower Walk was waiting in the pyracantha bush. He flew down and took four pine nuts from my hand.

The male Little Owl at the Round Pond was in his favourite horse chestnut tree ...

... and the male at the Serpentine Gallery was in the usual lime.

The number of Cormorants continues to rise, and they were on the posts all the way round the Serpentine island.

A Cormorant at Peter Pan shone in the sunlight. Their feathers have a greasy look which is misleading, as actually they get wetted more than those of most water birds, which is why they have to dry their wings after diving.

One of the four young Moorhens in the Italian Garden was checking a tuft of grass to see if there were any insects in it.

The ten Great Crested Grebe chicks are at their loudest and the lake resounds with their squeaks as they endlessly pester their patient parents. This is one of the three from the nest at the bridge.

Two of the four from the other nest on the Long Water were under a tree with a Pochard and a Tufted Duck. I met Bill Haines yesterday as he was doing his monthly bird count. He mentioned that, although there are plenty of Pochards, the number of Tufted Ducks has gone down severely. We have no idea why or where they have gone. Pochards are Red listed, so anyway it's good to see that numbers are staying up here.

A pair of Shovellers rested on the gravel strip in the Long Water. The drake is well advanced into his bright breeding plumage.

The Black Swan was reflected in the water of the Round Pond.

A fox looked out from behind a fern on the slope in the Dell. It's quite a young one. Probably there is a whole family here again after the park management's pointless attack on the previous residents.

The Huntress Fountain in the Rose Garden is finally working again today. It was originally referred to as the Diana Fountain, as the figure on top is of Diana, goddess of hunting, but now that name is used for the drain-like structure commemorating the dead princess. This fountain has nothing to do with her, and has been in the park for over a century. It was originally made for the garden of Sir Walter Palmer's house Frognal at Ascot in 1899, but was presented to Hyde Park by Lady Jean Palmer 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. There is another Diana fountain in Bushy Park, not to mention others in Madrid, Barcelona and Mexico City. She is a popular goddess.

I was trying to find an angle to photograph the female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery, who was well hidden in the leaves of the lime tree, when there was a rustle and her mate climbed past. He's on the right in this picture.

He flew up to a higher branch where you could get a good view of him.

The male owl at the Round Pond was also showing well in the horse chestnut.

The female Peregrine flew on to the barracks tower in the afternoon.

A young Magpie and a parent rested quietly on an arbutus in the Rose Garden.

A Robin perched on a stump in the Flower Walk. This isn't the one that comes to my hand, but I think it can be persuaded to when the cold weather arrives and the small birds are hungrier.

Chattering could be heard from the upper reaches of the Albert Memorial, and after a good deal of searching I found two Starlings -- they are on the left of this picture. The memorial is a hierarchical structure and the top figures, just under the cross, are the four archangels Gabriel, Rapahel, Michael and Uriel, though they are not labelled so there is no sure way of knowing which is which. However, they are sometimes associated with points of the compass and the birds are on the northernmost angel, who in that case would be Uriel.

Cormorants clustered on the fallen black poplar at the Vista.

The old Grey Heron was back in his customary place under the Henry Moore sculpture.

At the island a heron got too close to another, and inevitably there was a chase.

A Great Crested Grebe preened and flapped to settle its wing feathers comfortably.

One of the grebe chicks from the nest near the bridge was in the shade of the old weeping willow ...

... whose partly collapsed branches are a favourite resting place for Mallards.

The drakes are almost out of eclipse and this one already has a fine iridescent green head.

A male Common Darter dragonfly looked splendid on a dark-leafed shrub in the Dell. PlantNet says that this is Pittosporum tenuifolium, a plant from New Zealand which has the common names of Kohuhu, Tawhiwhi and Black Matipo in various Maori dialects -- not common at all really.

The barriers around the Huntress fountain have finally be removed but she isn't working yet. Maybe they're waiting for some bigwig to ceremonially reopen her, or maybe the plumbing simply isn't connected yet.

A pair of Jackdaws wandered along the gravel bank in the Round Pond, looking for insects on the bird droppings.

It was slightly chilly in the morning and again the female Little Owl didn't feel like coming out of her hole. Females seem to be more sedentary than males, even outside the nesting season.

The male owl at the Serpentine Gallery was perched in the middle of a bunch of leaves, and all I could see was one eye looking at me suspiciously ...

... but when I went past the tree again on my way home he had emerged.

The Blue Tit in the Flower Walk with a damaged foot stared out of a bush. It does have the remains of two toes on that foot, and was able to fly out and perch on my hand to collect a pine nut.

A Wood Pigeon eating hawthorn berries reached down too far. This is the moment it lost its grip and fell out of the tree.

The old Grey Heron from the Henry Moore sculpture was down on the Long Water fishing, I don't know how successfully. He had a mighty flap ...

... before flying up to the grassy mound where the paths divide to go over and under the bridge, a good spot for begging food off passing visitors.

One of the Great Crested Grebe chicks from the nest at the bridge picked a feather out of the water.

Their mother caught a fish and ate it herself. They need to keep themselves going during the incessant fishing for the chicks.

Three of the four from the middle of the Long Water were pestering their father. The fourth was visible out on the lake. All the ten grebe chicks on the lake that emerged initially are still alive, a remarkable record compared with the unfortunate ducks. It shows what good parents they are.

This is the youngest of them, the single chick from the second nest on the island.

A Cormorant at the Serpentine island splashed its way past a line of others perched on posts.

The female Mute Swan of the conquering pair was with the family at the Vista, being pointlessly nasty to some harmless Tufted Ducks.

There was enough of a breeze on the Serpentine to tempt a swan into the air.

There are still only two Shovellers on the Long Water, I think, a female and a drake just coming out of eclipse. Virginia got an excellent picture of him washing.

In the Rose Garden a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee going round a stonecrop flower head met a Common Carder coming the other way.

Two visits to the park today, briefly quite early in the morning and later in the afternoon. It was still chilly in the morning and the female Little Owl was staying in her hole.

She ignored a pair of Egyptian Geese making a fuss on top of the dead tree.

Later it got quite warm and brought the male out in the horse chestnut ...

... and some Feral Pigeons sunbathed in the grass.

The young Robin near the bridge, which we've seen before, was hopping around in the bushes ...

... and there were several Blue Tits in the corkscrew hazel in the Flower Walk.

A Starling at the Dell restaurant took possession of a plate of scraps and wouldn't allow another one near it.

Herring Gulls breed in Paddington, so the ones on the lake are often accompanied by their young. This one unsuccessfully whined at a parent for food, who felt that it was old enough to do its own scavenging.

The three Great Crested Grebe chicks were being fed under the bridge.

A Cormorant caught a carp on the long Water by Peter Pan ...

... and a female Shoveller cruised across the waterfront.

The Black Swan was staying on the Round Pond. He has jilted girlfriends both here and on the Serpentine, but I don't think either of them was particularly attached to him.

A worker Honeybee in the Rose Garden filled her pollen bags with orange pollen from an oxeye daisy.

Tom was at Rainham Marshes, where he got fine pictures of a Kingfisher ...

... and a Cattle Egret in flight. The Cattle Egrets at Rainham try to perch on the cows to eat their fleas, but the cows haven't realised that this is a good thing and shake them off.

Ahmet Amerikali was at Southwark Park, where he photographed a Goldcrest ...

... a Little Grebe making its way through a mat of duckweed ...

... and a Coot which has nested remarkably late in the year with a young chick.

The male Little Owl at the Round Pound preened in a horse chestnut tree.

The male at the Serpentine Gallery was also visible in the usual lime.

The Jackdaw population around the Dell is increasing, and today four arrived in quick succession to ask for peanuts. They are much more polite in their demands than the pushy Carrion Crows.

The yew tree by the bridge has a good crop of fruit. A Great Tit perched on a twig. I don't think they eat yew fruit, and it was more interested in getting a pine nut from me.

Both the Peregrines were on the tower, close but out of sight of each other on either side of the concrete rib.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull tried rushing into a crowd of feeding Feral Pigeons to grab one, but they managed to evade him. If a pigeon sees him coming it's almost always quick enough to escape, and his success depends on taking them by surprise.

It's easy to forget what a beautiful view there is looking down the Long Water, created around 1730 by Charles Bridgeman, from the Italian Garden created by Prince Albert in 1860s. It's one of the few remaining vistas not disfigured by a modern tower block.

It doesn't show in the long view above, but the bank south of Peter Pan is a tangle of fallen trees. Clearing them away is made impossible by health and safety regulations, so they are just left to lie in the water till they fall apart. They make ideal perches for Grey Herons and Cormorants.

The Mute Swan family were at Peter Pan passing the time by preening until they saw some well-meaning person with a bag of unhealthy bread.

The Black Swan flew to the Round Pond yesterday. He was reported to be in a filthy temper, and had probably lost a fight with the murderous male swan in the previous picture. By the time I saw him today he had calmed down.

The Canada Goose with the speckled head is looking unkempt around the neck, a sign that he is still not feeling himself after his ordeal with the fishing weight stuck in his bill. But he is eating and expected to be all right soon.

The single Great Crested Grebe chick at the Serpentine island tried begging from one parent and then the other, but they were preening and not in the mood for fishing at the moment. It does get well fed, though.

The four chicks on the Long Water were dashing about all over the lake.

The three young Moorhens in the Italian Garden also wander around and may be seen anywhere in the area.

The previous family of foxes in the Dell were removed by the park management, always more concerned with tidiness than with the welfare of wildlife. We were told that they had been 'relocated' which, if true, meant that they would have been dumped in another family's territory, resulting in a serious fight. It was a completely pointless act because a few days later more foxes have come in to fill the gap. The Dell is an ideal territory for them, protected from people and dogs by railings which the slim foxes can squeeze through.

Oxeye daisies in the Rose Garden attracted a crowd of Honeybees ...

... and a Common Banded Hoverfly, Syrphus ribesii.

The female Peregrine was preening on the tower of the Knightsbridge Barracks. I've had a report, so far unverified, that a pair has been nesting on the Trellick Tower two miles to the northwest, and from observations in previous years I think it's the same pair. There's no sign of young, though.

The dominant Robin at the Queen's Gate crossing of the Flower Walk looked out from a pyracantha bush.

Along the path, a Blue Tit in the corkscrew hazel had only one foot. It was perching quite easily and flew on to another twig.

Several rats were running around in the borders. They looked healthy and shiny, unlike the squirrels which are often pretty manky.

There was a Black-Headed Gull on the kerb of the Italian Garden with an orange plastic ring, 2V65. This is one of Bill Haines's ringed gulls. I could also read the metal ring, EA74195. This is an oddly early ring number, I think going back well before 2000. I asked Bill about this and he said that he had put on the metal ring and the plastic one earlier this year. The BTO had sent him 200 rings with EA numbers two years ago, and he thought they must have had them unused in a drawer somewhere.

It started raining hard. A Grey Heron landed in a tree.

One of the young Moorhens was being absolutely pelted, but seemed not to mind.

It found a small worm in a puddle.

It was only after the downpour relented that I was able to get round the lake. A Cormorant on a post at the island was preening its chin with a foot ...

... and a heron was doing the same in a treetop.

The bully Mute Swan was pointlessly chasing another away.

Behind the Albert Memorial a Feral Pigeon was eating a low-growing plant in a puddle. I looked it up on PlantNet, which said it was Greater Swinecress, Lepidium squamatum.

The female Little Owl at the Round Pond emerged from shelter and perched in a horse chestnut tree.

The Great Crested Grebe chicks from the bridge were on the Serpentine, calling nonstop and being fed every few minutes.

One of the chicks from the middle of the Long Water had been given a fish as large as it can swallow, and rinsed it carefully so that it went down more easily.

The single chick from the island always stays close to its parents.

More strong wind today, followed by rain so heavy that I had to come home on the Tube. The Round Pond is a very exposed place, and when it blows hard even the big Mute Swans have a bumpy ride.

Swans love water sprays, and the cygnets were enjoying a shower under one of the spouts on the edge of the Italian Garden.

The single male swan was still in one of the pools. There are enough algae here to keep a swan going indefinitely but it must be boring. He can leave by climbing down on to the Long Water -- but not when the killer's family is right underneath.

The single Gadwall drake here is peacefully coexisting with a group of Mallards. I think all the other Gadwalls have left again.

The Black Swan was under the bridge, affording an unusual top view as he preened.

The father of the Great Crested Grebe family at the bridge was having a well deserved rest, ignoring the constant squeaking of his three chicks.

The single chick at the island is very quiet. As a pampered only child it gets a lot of attention and doesn't need to beg. However, it is diving actively after its parents and learning the essential skills of fishing.

A pair of Cormorants at the island perched companionably side by side.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull's mate was enjoying her share of the latest victim ...

... and their son was hanging around hoping to get a bit. The parents don't chase him away, but they don't do him any favours either.

Again it was too windy for the Little Owls to come out, but the female at the Round Pond could be seen looking out of the hole in the nest tree.

This young Robin near the bridge must have been hatched quite late in the season, as it still has some juvenile brown plumage.

The corkscrew hazel in the Flower Walk is popular with all the small birds, as its twisty twigs offer plenty of places where they can perch comfortably. This Robin is often here but isn't one that will come to be fed.

A Blue Tit, however, is always ready to come out for a pine nut.

A Carrion Crow at the Italian Garden didn't want a peanut for once, as it had discovered a tasty corpse in the bushes.

This one did want to be fed, and cawed loudly for all its friends to come over.

It was a very windy day with occasional drizzle. Not surprisingly the Little Owls at the Serpentine Gallery were not to be seen, and had probably gone into one of the two hollow chestnut trees. But the owls at the Round Pond sometimes look out of their hole even in the roughest weather, and sure enough there was the female.

The Flower Walk is sheltered by tall trees, and a Blue Tit could perch on a twig undisturbed.

The Robin at the Queen's Gate crossing was looking impatient ...

... because I had to feed a Jay first to get it out of the way.

Another Robin bathed in a puddle.

A Magpie at the Lido restaurant had no intention of swimming but showed every sign of wanting a peanut.

With no one on the restaurant terraces the Starlings had no scraps to grab, so they were looking for insects in the grass and picking up grit from the path. Even on a dull day their plumage looks splendid.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull was also looking very fine against a background of dead leaves. He is beginning to get the grey-streaked head of his winter plumage,

He had trouble with two Carrion Crows and a Herring Gull trying to take his latest meal.

The two Great Crested Grebe chicks from the first nest on the Serpentine island are now as large as their parents and have well developed black crests. They're still being fed, but it can only be a couple of weeks before they're expected to fend for themselves.

It's a surprise to find that they're older than the grebe chicks from the bridge, whose crests are only just forming. They stayed hidden behind the baskets surrounding the island for a long time and didn't come into view until we's been watching the Long Water families for several weeks.

A Moorhen on the edge of the Serpentine got caught in a tailwind ...

... but the Italian Garden is well sheltered and the chicks were in calm water.

This Mute Swan in the Italian Garden isn't the female we've been seeing recently. As you can see from the large knob on the bill he's male.

Tom was at Rainham Marshes, and sent fine pictures of a Kingfisher in the rain ...

... and a young Hobby. You can see it's young because it doesn't have the reddish 'underpants' of an adult.

A Chiffchaff sang out of season on top of a holly tree beside the Long Water.

A Robin sang in the corkscrew hazel bush in the Flower Walk.

A Blue Tit perched on another twig.

The west side of the Long Water now has a permanent buffet for the Rose-Ringed Parakeets. Someone even put up a feeder for them, but it got stolen within a day.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was in her usual lime tree.

The male Peregrine was preening on the barracks. He looked down. They're always very aware of what's happening on the ground ...

... which today included hundreds of enticingly edible Feral Pigeons -- I think the worn grass must have been re-seeded.

Usually the pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull can clear other gulls from his territory, but this Herring Gull refused to go and staged a sit-down strike.

A Grey Heron was fishing under the willow near the bridge ...

... and on the other side of the bridge a Cormorant was drying its wings after a fishing session.

There was also a female Pochard diving busily. Their diet includes small fish and aquatic insects.

The waterspouts on the edge of the Italian Garden are a popular place for Mute Swans. Maybe the disturbed water provides more food, but swans seem to find sprays amusing. They often hang around the powerful jet of the water intake on the Round Pond.

This is the Canada Goose with the speckled head that was rescued last Tuesday when it got a fishing weight stuck in its nostril. It was cruising briskly up the Long Water and seemed well.

Two of the young Moorhens in the Italian Garden fountains explored a patch of Great Willowherb.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee in the Rose Garden enjoyed the abundant pollen in a white rose. It got shaken out by a gust of wind but quickly returned.

A Small White butterfly fed on the long-flowering Verbena bonariensis in the Flower Walk.

After the swimming event at the weekend the warning notices about blue-green algae are back. What a tactful organism it must be to disappear whenever it might be inconvenient.

The Little Owl pair at the Serpentine Gallery were together, but you had to stand in different places to get a clear view of either. This is the female ...

... and this is the male.

A Robin in a yew in the Flower Walk paused his song ...

... to catch a beetle.

A Blue Tit looked down from another twig.

A Wren came out beside the Long Water.

A pair of Magpies perched side by side in the top of a holly tree.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull's mate got her share of his latest kill while he preened on the roof.

A young Grey Heron was fishing on the wire baskets under the bridge.

The young Moorhens in the Italian Garden skittered around the Italian Garden unobstructed as rain kept the humans in shelter.

They are still in drab teenage brown but are beginning to get their red and yellow bills.

The single Great Crested Grebe chick at the island preened beside its mother. Both of them did that peculiar grebe shrug to settle their feathers.

The lone female Mute Swan stood on the kerb in the Italian Garden. She is safe from the killer swan ...

... until maybe he decides to extend his territory further. He was at the Vista with his family.

A small group of Gadwalls has arrived on the lake, something they seem to do completely at random, coming in from the other central London parks. There was a pair near the Lido ...

... a drake with two female Mallards in the Italian Garden ...

... and another drake passing under a line of Cormorants at the island.

They have oddly narrow heads. Their field of vision must include being able to see straight upwards, a useful feature for spotting predators.

The mass swimming even on the Serpentine had reduced the whole area to chaos with booming hideous music. Most of the waterfowl had retreated to the Long Water, and the gravel strip was crowded. The five cygnets were there with their father, who for once was not making trouble.

The Black Swan was taking no notice of the hundreds of thrashing swimmers, and was cruising around serenely in his usual place on the Serpentine.

A few Mute Swans remained at the east end of the lake by the Dell restaurant, where a woman with a dog was amusing herself by harassing one of them. Dog owners live in a different world where everything their pet does is funny and lovely.

The boat hire had closed down and a Moorhen trotted over the deserted platform.

The two pairs of Great Crested Grebes with chicks had been forced into the chained-off area between the island and the shore, where they were at opposite ends to avoid conflict. The chicks were having to shout even louder than usual to make themselves heard over the din.

The family near the bridge had had to leave their preferred fishing ground as it was on the swimming route. The three chicks were in the middle of the Long Water preening with their mother.

Father was fishing, and it was service as usual.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull's son is still following his father around whining for food. He gets his share of the pigeons and ought to be content with that. (I confidently say 'he' because he's very big.)

The Little Owls at the Serpentine Gallery are getting harder and harder to see, and it took two visits to find the female well camouflaged against the trunk of the lime tree.

Near the Henry Moore sculpture a Chiffchaff perched in a hawthorn ...

... and the local Robin could be seen in the bushes on a bramble.

A horse chestnut tree here has been hard hit by the leaf miner moth. A Great Tit was pecking at the brown patches on the leaves, I think in vain because the caterpillars should have grown up and gone by now.

The amount of damage done by the moth is very variable and this year some trees have escaped entirely, possibly because the moths were killed by last year's drought. Trees standing on mown grass are little affected, but those in rough grass or brambles get badly chewed up.

There was no visible wound in the bark of this hornbeam tree by the leaf yard, but it was oozing a lot of sticky sap.

A Speckled Wood butterfly rested on a fallen leaf below it.

A Red Admiral stood on the path, ignoring the passers by.

While skirting the event I went past the place near the Rima relief where in the Olympic year of 2012 a large patch of British wildflowers was planted. They persisted for years but gradually dominant species took over, and now it's mostly thistles and knapweed. But the knapweed flowers attract plenty of bees. Here are a Common Carder -- there are a lot of them at the moment --

... and a Honeybee.

A remarkable picture from Spain sent by Tinúviel's bird guide Jesús Porras. He set up a camera with a motion detector, and what should trigger it but an Imperial Eagle?

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits worked over a dead hawthorn near the Henry Moore sculpture. Although the tree is dead it's still full of insects in the lichen encrusting its twigs.

A Chiffchaff was going along with the flock, as small warblers often do. It perched in the adjacent hawthorn, which is still alive.

A Chaffinch behind the Albert Memorial waited for me to throw a pine nut up in the air, which it darted out and neatly caught.

A Blue Tit photographed by Mark Williams in St James's Park. The colours in the background remind us that although it's still warm, autumn is here.

There was a full house of Starlings on the weathervane at the Lido restaurant.

It took two visits to find a Little Owl in the lime tree near the Serpentine Gallery. This is the male of the pair. Probably his mate, whom I photographed here yesterday, was in the tree but out of sight.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull was lying down in an effort to lull the pigeons into a false sense of security.

A young Herring Gull dived in the shallow water at the edge of the lake, looking for something edible or interesting.

In the Italian Garden a young Grey Heron made one of the Egyptian Geese nervous by creeping up behind it.

Belinda Davie photographed a Cormorant coming up with a large perch tangled in weed, which had to be shaken off.

The single Great Crested Grebe chick from the nest at the east end of the island dived busily beside its mother. It actually found an insect larva, a step on the way to feeding itself.

One of the chicks on the Long Water saw  its father fishing on the other side of the bridge, and hurried to join it ...

... and was rewarded with a fish.

The other two saw this and went under the bridge too.

Carp of different sizes in the Italian Garden. The large one, two feet long, will be about twelve years old, since the pools were drained in 2010 when the garden was being renovated and have been repopulated accidentally from eggs brought in by birds.

A Comma butterfly drank nectar from Michaelmas daisies in the Rose Garden. Near the end of this video you can see the curved white mark on the underwing that gives it its name.

This young Lesser Black-Backed Gull is probably the son of Pigeon Eater, who had chased all the other gulls away. He had found a sweetcorn husk. There wasn't much to eat on it but it made a good toy as it could be rolled around, something that young gulls find fascinating.

Several small birds, silhouetted against the sunlight, flew into the top of a hawthorn near Peter Pan. Looking at the picture afterwards I could see that it was a group of Blackcaps, which would have come to eat the ripe berries. This is a male.

A Robin in the bushes near the Henry Moore sculpture insected a spider's web to see if there was anything edible in it.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was dozing in the warm sunshine in her usual lime tree.

It's always feeding time for the ravenous Great Crested Grebe chicks on the Long Water.

The youngest chick on the Serpentine was with its mother under a boat.

A Cormorant caught a carp in the Long Water and tossed it in the air to turn it round.

There's a new young Mute Swan on the Round Pond. Its wings are already developed and it must have flown in from outside the park. It was with a female adult which may have been its mother.

The cygnet that walked to the pond from the main lake is still small and won't be flying for some time.

Belinda Davie got a good picture of the female Tufted Duck with a white face. It's definitely not a Scaup or any kind of hybrid.

There are still lots of Migrant Hawkers, especially between the Serpentine Gallery and the bridge, where I photographed this male perched on a reed stem.

Dragonflies have the sharpest eyes of any insect, with 28,000 to 30,000 ommatidia (cells that give the equivalent of pixels in a photograph) in each one. How sharp is that? This picture has the same resolution as a dragonfly's entire field of vision, 60,000 pixels -- I enlarged it for demonstration. So they're not all that sharp by the standards of a human or a bird.

This isn't a wonderful picture but it's the best I could get of a female Common Darter whizzing up and down to lay her eggs in water at Peter Pan.

The patch of green alkanet at the top of the steps by Temple Gate keeps coming back into flower. It's popular with Common Carder Bees.

Two more Common Carders on a phlomis in the Rose Garden.

Mauve Michaelmas daisies attracted plenty of Honeybees. A smaller bee, probably a Mining Bee, made a brief appearance. Michaelmas is 29 September, not for another 15 days -- I wonder if the flowers will still be blooming.

The large frightening notices all around the lake about toxic blue-green algae have of course been taken down as workmen install the paraphernalia for the swimming event at the weekend. In their place is one modest notice at the Lido, as far away as possible from the event. If anything unfortunate happens the park administration can still say 'I told you so.'

You'll be glad to hear that the Canada Goose with the speckled head is back on the Serpentine. It turned out that the trouble was a small lead fishing weight that had somehow got stuck up his nostril.

Three Red Crested Pochard drakes in eclipse cruised by the island.

At the east end of the island a Great Crested Grebe fed a feather to her single chick, the youngest on the lake.

A chick near Peter Pan sprinted to grab a fish.

One of the Moorhen chicks in the Italian Garden was in an old Coot nest in one of the planters.

In the next pool a Grey Heron was on the lookout for fish.

The heron at the Henry Moore sculpture is old and frail, but he still looks after his appearance.

At the bridge a Cormorant flapped frantically on a post. Nothing was wrong, it was just drying its wings.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was in the lime tree, only just visible through the leaves.

A Wren chittered in the bushes beside the Long Water.

A Jay looked round a branch in the Flower Walk.

Hawthorns are an easy feeding place for Wood Pigeons, which can reach the berries without having to stretch and possibly fall out of the tree.

A squirrel was having a very long reach for an acorn. But their grip is much stronger than that of pigeons and you hardly ever see one lose its footing.

Ahmet Amerikali found a Chiffchaff near the bridge.

It's hard to compare pictures taken in different lights, but this young Willow Warbler photographed by Mark Williams at the Welsh Harp reservoir is noticeably yellower and has pale pinkish brown feet, while Chiffchaffs' feet are dark brown.

Two more pictures by Mark: a young Pied Wagtail, also at the Welsh Harp ...

... and a beautiful shot of a young Blackbird in St James's Park.

The familiar Canada Goose with a speckled head had a bit of fine fishing line around its bill, and hadn't been eating for several days.

A closer look, with a feather caught in the line.

So it had to be caught and disentangled, an operation which eventually took ten people. After it had dodged a boat at the island for some time it was finally captured on the shore. This stresses the bird, of course, but it has to be done and we think it will be all right.

The bloodthirsty Mute Swan had parked his five cygnets on the gravel strip at the Vista ...

... and come over the other side to beg for food from visitors. They thought he was sweet. I didn't disillusion them.

The female swan in the Italian Garden was dozing peacefully on the edge of a pool, ignoring passers by. Even the junior swans know who rules in the park.

One of the Moorhen chicks climbed nimbly up a stone kerb.

The Great Crested Grebe family from the Long Water went under the bridge on to the Serpentine, where the fishing is better. One of the three chicks dawdled behind and had to catch up.

This is another old Grey Heron who likes to rest his weary legs. He had found a comfortable tussock of grass in one of the wire baskets at the island.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery looked back over her shoulder from her perch in the lime tree.

A female Blackbird at Queen's Gate looked gravely at the camera. Someone must have been feeding her, because when I threw down some raisins she hopped out and ate them.

A young Blackbird, probably her offspring, enjoyed pyracantha fruit nearby in the Flower Walk.

A Blue Tit stared down from the corkscrew hazel bush.

Now that the Robins have started singing again you realise how many there are. They have half a dozen carefully spaced territories along the east side of the Long Water.

This large white fungus was growing beside the path near the Henry Moore sculpture.

By a strange coincidence, the notices about toxic blue-green algae were put up the day after the Lido closed for public swimming. They're still up.

There's going to be a swimming event in the Serpentine this weekend. I wonder whether it will be fortunately discovered that the algae have gone away.

The Albert Memorial glittering in sunlight against a stormy sky,

The bossy Robin is usually waiting for me in the Flower Walk. Although he chases the other small birds out of the bushes, sometimes a Great Tit turns the tables by knocking him off my hand.

The female Little Owl at the Serpentine peeped round a branch in the lime tree.

A large family of Magpies bounced around their nest beside the Long Water.

Three young Moorhens have appeared in the Italian Garden fountains from a well hidden nest. They are already large enough to roam all over the garden on their enormous feet.

Here are the two Great Crested Grebe chicks from the first nest on the Serpentine island, and the single one from the second nest.

But there's no shortage of chicks this year, because there are two other families on the Long Water with three and four. They have now spread out all over the lake, so you caan't get tidy group shots any more. The chicks at the bridge are now quite large and are beginning to get black crests.

One of the other family with its mother was passed by one of the five Mute cygnets.

The other four cygnets were at the Vista preening.

One of them unfolded its wings to reveal a brand new set of flight feathers. They will be making short practice flights soon, which sometimes end in an ignominious tumble into the water.

The Black Swan was back to following his white girlfriend as usual. She doesn't seem to be very keen on him, which is sad for this obviously lonely bird.

One of the two female swans recently seen in the Italian Garden has returned, and was with the resident pair of Egyptian Geese.

This female Tufted Duck on the gravel strip in the Long Water has a very white face. She's sometimes wrongly reported as a Scaup, but it's just a natural variation.

A Common Carder Bee browsed on a patch of busy Lizzies.

A Batman Hoverfly preferred Chinese chives.

A Common Wasp landed on a fly caught in a spider's web, pulled it loose  ...

... and carried it off.

The Peregrines were together on the barracks tower.

I've had a request from the London Peregrine Partnership. The male of the pair is ringed, and they are trying to find the ring number. He has a normal BTO metal ring on his right leg, quite unreadeable from the ground of course, and a plastic ring which looks as if it was once red but has faded on his left leg. The female is definitely not ringed. I've gone through all my pictures since late 2019, when I got my present high quality camera, and very little is visible, mainly as the birds stand on the ledge and you can't see their feet. This is the best picture I could find, greatly magnified, which shows what looks like the letters JK. Does anyone have a better picture?

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was uncommonly hard to find in the lime tree.

A Great Tit clung to the stonework of the bridge with a spider in its beak.

A Wren near the Buck Hill shelter was making a loud fuss as usual.

A Grey Wagtail on the edge of the Serpentine. I haven't seen one for some time, and I think they fly in and out and are not permanent residents.

A young Grey Heron posed elegantly on a post at the Vista.

Cormorants washed and preened at the waterfront by Peter Pan.

The Great Crested Grebe family halfway up the Long Water is usually too far away for a good view, but today they came quite close at Peter Pan.

One of the chicks hurried to grab a fish.

You can film the Great Crested Grebe chicks at the bridge by looking straight down from the parapet, though there's the problem of traffic noise.

The family at the Serpentine island were also visible.

The Mute Swans with five cygnets advanced down the Long Water in line astern. The female is leading the procession. Cygnets will follow either parent and are less fixated on their mother than geese.

The Black Swan was back on the Serpentine after his expedition to the Long Water. Unusually it was his girlfriend following him rather than the other way round.

A Willow Emerald damselfly perched on a twig beside the Long Water ...

... and there was a Speckled Wood butterfly on a bramble leaf below.

This Sunday it was a swing band at the Hyde Park bandstand, with some pretty good dancers.

A young Song Thrush was sunbathing on the edge of the path beside the Long Water. 

It was much less shy than an adult, though eventually the people passing by were too much to tolerate and it went back into the bushes.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was visible but awkward to photograph. In the morning he was facing away, though he sleepily looked back over his shoulder ...

... and in the afternoon he could only be seen when looking directly into the sun.

Again no sign of an owl near the Round Pond. We may have seen the last of them for this year.

It was hot and the small birds were sheltering in the bushes, but yesterday when it was a bit cooler Ahmet Amerikali found a Willow Warbler ...

... and a Long-Tailed Tit near the Henry Moore sculpture ...

... and a Dunnock in the Rose Garden.

A Cormorant stared at a young Grey Heron on the fallen Black Poplar tree in the Long Water.

There were Cormorants all round the lake. Two perched on a fallen Lombardy Poplar by Peter Pan.

Lombardy Poplars, being tall and thin, have a tendency to blow over and several have come down in gales -- I was watching when this one fell, several years ago. A very large one at the edge of the Peter Pan waterfront, infected with wood-rotting Poplar Fieldcap mushrooms, is leaning more and more but resolutely refuses to collapse.

The Great Crested Grebe family with four chicks were scattered all over the Long Water.

The grebes with three chicks were staying under the willow by the bridge ...

... which also provided shade for a female Mallard ...

... and a group of Canada Geese.

The Black Swan had come on to the Long Water, the first time I've seen him there.

A clump of stonecrop in the Rose Garden attracted Honeybees and Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.

All the pomegranates on the bush by the Big Bird statue have been taken except for one too high to reach.

A Great Tit near the bridge had found something unidentifiable wrapped up in a web ...

... which it was busily tearing off.

The Robin near the Henry Moore sculpture came out on the railings.

A Song Thrush foraged on the ground below.

A Wood Pigeon was eating hard unripe holly berries. When one gets into that position you know it's going to fall out soon, and so it did.

A Carrion Crow was panting in the heat.

The male Little Owl at the Serpentine Gallery was in the lime tree.

It took quite a while to find him, and I didn't find an owl at the Round Pond at all.

There are more Cormorants daily. Seven stood in a row on the posts at Peter Pan ...

... and there were four more on the raft ...

... which called to mind the old children's prayer,

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,

Bless the bed that I lie on.

Four corners to my bed,

Four angels round my head;

One to watch and one to pray

And two to bear my soul away.

At the island, one jumped awkwardly on to a post and shook itself dry.

There was a Grey Heron at the near end of the row. It seemed impossible to get them all into focus, but then I remembered that my smaller camera has a 'landscape' getting that takes four photographs at different focuses and stitches them together. I tried this and it worked surprisingly well.

The Great Crested Grebe family from the bridge were in the middle of the Long Water.

This is the family from the Serpentine island.

Feeding the chicks is a tricky business ...

... because of the gulls waiting to snatch any fish and then fight over it.

The Mute cygnet from the island hasn't been seen for several days. There was a lone cygnet on the shore at the Dell restaurant, but it looks a bit too big to be the island cygnet and may have been one of the five that had wandered off by itself.

A clump of white-flowered stonecrop in the Rose Garden attracted Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.

Another hot day kept the small birds sheltering in the bushes. A Blue Tit in the Flower Walk looked out over a leaf ...

... and one of the Coal Tits behind the Albert Memorial briefly emerged. They are singing occasionally.

The Long-Tailed Tits never abandon their endless journey hunting insects.

Wrens are visible mainly when they are yelling defiance at Magpies and Jays.

The adult male Blackbird in the Dell came out on to a rock, looking as smart in his black plumage as Beau Brummell when he upstaged the dandies in their bright suits.

Green Woodpeckers appear unpredictably anywhere. This one was near the Henry Moore sculpture.

The male Little Owl at the Round Pond was uncomfortable and restless, leaping from branch to branch.

The female at the Serpentine Gallery was settled in a shaded spot in the lime tree.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull was in his usual place near the Dell restaurant. He's having to hunt naive and easily caught pigeons farther afield now, but this is still his home territory.

A Cormorant preened on a post at the Serpentine island.

The three Great Crested Grebe chicks at the bridge kept cool under the willow tree.

One of the grebes from the island gave a mighty shrug. The chick was not disturbed by this usual grebe comfort movement, and it does the same thing on a smaller scale.

This Canada x Greylag hybrid goose has paired with a pure Canada. There will be no offspring as the hybrids are sterile, but really the lake has more geese than it can cope with.

A mob of Canadas and a couple of Greylags collected to eat some birdseed chucked into the lake.

A patch of salvia attracted a crowd of Buff-Tailed Bumblebees.

A Batman Hoverfly took a moment off browsing on Mexican Orange blossom and rested on one of the glossy leaves.

There are still quite a few Speckled Wood butterflies. Although individual adults live only three weeks, the species has a long season from April to October.