The female owl near the Albert Memorial was calling. She had gone back to the oak tree next to the bicycle path.
There was a Great Spotted Woodpecker on a nearby dead tree, one of its favourite perches where I have often photographed it.
A Common Gull at the Lido didn't mind the rain ...
... and a pair of Egyptian Geese stood impassively in a puddle ...
... but a Feral Pigeon at the Diana fountain was wet and miserable, and sheltered under the overhanging edge.
A Grey Heron shook out its feathers on a moored pedalo.
A Wren lurked in a flower bed in the Rose Garden ...
... but suddenly decided to come out and cheer up a nasty wet autumn day with a song.
A Great Tit near the bridge clung easily to the spiked railings.
Later it cleared up and the sun came out for a few minutes. A pair of Moorhens trotted along the edge at the Lido.
The rabbits seem to have completely disappeared from their former home at the Henry Moore sculpture, but surprisingly there is a recently dug rabbit hole in the Rose Garden, a busy spot only 200 yards from Hyde Park Corner and not at all the kind of place you'd expect to find rabbits.
Tom visited Richmond Park, where he got a fine video of Red Deer stags rutting.
Also a couple of Parasol mushrooms, big things that can be 15 inches tall and are very good eating at any size. This is the true Parasol, Macrolepiota procera, not the shorter, rounder Shaggy Parasol, M. rhacodes, which is better avoided as some people are allergic to it.
He was also at Rainham, where he got a remarkable shot of a Stoat which had caught a Short-Tailed Vole.
[Corny joke alert: sensitive readers should stop here.] How did he know it was a Stoat and not a Weasel? Well, it's so weaselly distinguished, it's stoatally different.
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