After hours of heavy rain the park is as wet as it can be. Every flat area is flooded, every step is a squelch. At the bottom of the Vista, the drain that serves the long slope down from Kensington Palace is overflowing and discharging a medium-sized stream across the path, so that people not wearing waterproof boots have to turn back -- there is no way round over the waterlogged grass. All this is much to the taste of a pair of Egyptian Geese.

 It wouldn't be a proper Christmas without a picture of a Robin.

This one is the owner of a large territory on the edge of the leaf yard, from which it furiously expels all birds of equal size or smaller. It is no good trying to feed the Great Tits or Chaffinches in this place, as the Robin will launch itself against them as soon as they appear, much like one of the Angry Birds in the video game.

In the Long Water off the Italian Garden, a Cormorant was looking for its Christmas dinner. Its blue eyes gives it an innocent expression that is at odds with the ferocity of its large beak with a sharp downward-pointing spike on the tip to ensure that no fish escapes.

On the Serpentine, a pair of female Pochards came across briskly for some bits of biscuit.

They are more numerous in winter, when migrants fly in from eastern Europe, but some are resident. Oddly, they don't seem to breed on the lake, although Red-Crested Pochards and Mandarins, which are more exotic species, usually have a try.