An uneventful day on the lake, with just the routine views of a pair of Shovellers circling each other on the Long Water ...

... and one of the young Herring Gulls on the Serpentine amusing itself by picking up leaves, dropping them. and diving to catch them.

So I went to the Round Pond. The Pied Wagtails have now adjusted to the new kerb that stops them from running along right at the edge of the water. Two of them were on the downwind side of the pond where the choppy waves were breaking over the edge, and seemed to be finding food in the pools this left on the tarmac. They had to run away whenever a wave broke, but wagtails are used to that.

The eight young Egyptians were debating whether to go into a huddle against the cold, or to eat some more grass before they settled down.

Some of them wandered off to graze, and the others followed.

By now it was sunset. There was a flurry of gulls around a Black-Headed Gull carrying a bit of food, at the top of the group in this picture, and a Common Gull just underneath harried it into dropping the food, which it caught.

The Tawny Owl was waiting to emerge from his hole because there was a bunch of Magpies in the beech tree overlooking it.

Eventually, at 3.55 and after the sun had set, they went away and he came out to look around before going hunting.

Friends of the park regulars will be glad to know that Jim is back, after a long absence that had us worried. But he had just been in Scotland. With his usual skill he instantly persuaded one of the shy Coal Tits to take food from his hand, something that the rest of us have been trying in vain for weeks.