As autumn sets in the small birds are getting hungrier, and a good number of Great Tits and Robins came to take food from my hand.

One of the Robins near the bridge stared impatiently while I took a picture.

The Blackbirds in the Rose Garden are now so accustomed to being given sultanas that they come out of the bushes to meet me. It's surprising how confident these normally shy birds become.

Mistle Thrushes hopped around looking for insects in the grass on Buck Hill ...

... or ate the few berries still on the lower branches of the rowans. They start eating at the top and work down.

A view of the female Kestrel on one of her favourite trees in the middle of the hill, commanding a wide view of possible prey.

Tom got a better picture of the Hobby at Rainham than I managed yesterday.

A young Herring Gull on the Serpentine made a loud fuss about something.

A short way along the shore, a Great Crested Grebe scratched its ear.

The grebes from the east end of the island were looking after their chicks in the water.

This is a very ordinary picture of the hopelessly incompetent pair of Egyptians in their usual place in the Italian Garden -- except for one thing.

The female, the one with the blonde head, is moulting and temporarily unable to fly. Yesterday she was in the lake, six feet lower than the garden and separated from it by a tricky climb up the marble fountain involving a three-foot jump up to its lower bowl. How did she get up? If she had walked round she would have had to go all the way to the Vista and take a long, dangerous walk along the path, exposed to foxes.

It was quite breezy, and a Common Darter dragonfly was having to crouch low on the balustrade to avoid being blown away.

There was a music lesson on the grass in the Rose Garden. I think the instrument is an oud. It's very quiet, and was hard to hear above the general noise in the park.

In Kensington Gardens, a dance for the last day of summer.