I'm trying to control Blogger's disastrous new interface. But it's so slow and bad that I think I'll have to move the blog to WordPress.

A Blue Tit preened and fluffed its feathers in a tree near the bridge.

Two Long-Tailed Tits were also preening in a tangled bush near the Albert Memorial.

They were accompanied by a Chiffchaff, one of several small birds that often join Long-Tailed Tits' feeding flocks.

Another Long-Tailed Tit perched on a twig. (This is almost the same shot as yesterday's with a different bird and a different twig, but Long-Tailed Tits are irresistible.)

A Starling stood on the fence around the terrace of the Dell restaurant, waiting for a chance to snatch scraps off a table ...

... while just across the path others were feasting in a Cabbage Palm in the Dell.

Two Carrion Crows were having a conversation in a nearby tree. The loud caw with head raised is a crow's 'notice call', used for greeting or summoning other crows. But I haven't worked out what the quieter, almost melodious sound means. Sorry about the all too understandable call of a miserable toddler in the background. His parents were trying to quieten him with ice cream, with little effect.

Vinny Kinsler, one of the Parks Police who is a serious birdwatcher, saw a Whinchat on Tuesday in a tall horse chestnut tree immediately to the north of the Buck Hill shelter. I saw two Whinchats on Buck Hill on 20 August. They may have stayed and just escaped notice, maybe by going across the road to the Meadow. I tried to find them today but had no luck.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull was trying to make himself inconspicuous by mingling with a mixed crowd of geese.

He glanced over his shoulder to see if any of the pigeons resting behind him had shut an eye.

One of the teenage Great Crested Grebes from the east end of the island was fishing busily near the Serpentine outflow. I didn't see it catch anything.

Ahmet Amerikali got a good shot of a Cormorant turning a perch round before swallowing it.

Cormorants are now returning in some numbers, and there were twelve at the island.

As the Shoveller drakes start regrowing their breeding plumage ...

... Tufted drakes ...

... and Mallards are going through the same process.

The teenage Mallards on the Serpentine have kept up the habit of concealment that kept them safe when they were little, and were in a patch of nettles on the deserted Mute Swan nest next to the boathouse.