There were about twenty Mistle Thrushes eating rowan berries on Buck Hill, the most I have seen for some time, and also half a dozen Blackbirds.

These trees have such a profusion of berries that the thrushes never finish them, and I have often visited them in October and November in the hope that the remaining berries will attract some Waxwings. No luck yet.

The five Moorhen chicks in the Italian Garden were still around. So were ten Great Crested Grebe chicks: broods of four and three on the Long Water, and two and one at the Serpentine island -- not a bad number considering the very slow start caused by the lack of fish in the spring.

The object that this Lesser Black-backed Gull is perched on is an old iron pillar showing the water level in the Serpentine. It is not clear what zero represents on this scale, but it hardly matters because the level barely changes, as you can see from the growth of algae. The level is maintained by the weir at the outflow of the lake, where I photographed a young Coot standing on the 12th. A few years ago some work was being done on the outflow, and the builders kept the water out by putting sandbags on top of the weir. It raised the level by three or four inches, which flooded the path around the Serpentine in several places.

Here a party of Starlings perches on the weathervane of the Lido, a good lookout point as they watch the restaurant tables for unguarded food. When they see something and take off, the arrow spins wildly.

In Hyde Park you can see the bright berries of Arum maculatum, which has many common names such as Lords and Ladies and Cuckoo-Pint. They are very poisonous, though few people manage to eat a fatal dose as the berries have a numbing effect on the mouth which acts as a warning.