The Ring-Necked Parakeets have discovered that the seeds in the long pods on the catalpa trees near the Italian Garden are edible. They have been pulling the pods off the tree and opening them on the ground. When Eleanor Culver passed by, she found a whole group of them and took this striking picture.

When I came past there were only two, but I got a close shot of how they hold the pod with one foot to rip it open.

There are reports of large numbers of Redwings arriving in London, so I looked over the south end of the Parade Ground and the Archery Field north of Kensington Palce, which are their favourite spots in the park. No sign of them, but on the Archery Field there were two Mistle Thrushes, a pair of Pied Wagtails, half a dozen Magpies and a Green Woodpecker, all hunting for small creatures in the grass.

Later the wagtails flew to the lawn behind the pond in front of Kensington Palace, where there is a rather odd-looking statue of Queen Victoria sculpted by her daughter Princess Louise. Here is the female of the pair having a stretch.

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits flew by on the south side of the Serpentine. A couple of minutes later there were loud purring calls from the top of a willow tree. One of them had not been paying attention and had been left behind, and was calling to re-establish contact with the flock.

Long-Tailed Tits constantly utter their si-si-si flight call as they move through the trees, so that they keep together. They usually make the purring call when perched.

The male Little Owl was in his favourite place in the pair's nest tree.

The male Tawny Owl was in his almost invisible place in the beech tree when I first passed, but later he moved on to the nest tree and settled down in his favourite place on the broken trunk, above the hole where they nest.

This owl is already famous, but now another of the park birds has become a celebrity. The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull has made it into the papers. Here is the Daily Mail's quite full account of his activities. It is not too sensationalist as newspaper stories go, because I sent the journalists a carefully written email, from which they cut and pasted chunks.

Today the gull himself was sitting on the roof of the Dell restaurant, looking for his next chance.