A Great Crested Grebe preened its brilliant white belly. The colour is camouflage when seen from below against the shining water surface, and must help the grebe to get nearer fish to catch them.

A Coot washed and raised a cloud of spray.

A Moorhen showered under a fountain in the Italian Garden. I was trying to photograph a rainbow in the spray, but it only came out very faintly.

A Cormorant shook weed off a fish it had caught.

The young Mute Swans are now making longer flights, and two of them went almost the whole length of the Serpentine, though at a safely low altitude.

An adult had been in a fight and was looking quite battered. Thanks to Ahmet Amerikali for this picture.

Another fine picture by Ahmet: an Egyptian Goose about to splash down.

The park management seem to have decided to keep the Diana memorial fountain running, after shutting it down for months during the Great Panic. A pair of Egyptians were delighted by the clean flowing water, and more so because the gates are shut and humans can't come in to disturb them.

A Shoveller drake preened at the Vista.

The Jays are getting hungrier, and three came to take peanuts from my hand.

A single Mistle Thrush landed in a tree on Buck Hill. Where are all the autumn migrants?

A Robin looked out from a bush at the bottom of the hill, already bare of leaves.

During the recent mild weather Common Wasps have remained active on a clump of fatsia near the bridge. They have a particular fondness for these flowers, and for the similar ones of ivy.

The weather has also misled a Japanese flowering cherry into putting out blossom amid its yellow autumn leaves. The tree is at the Marble Arch end of the North Carriage Drive. Thanks to Duncan Campbell for this unusual picture.

An Airbus A400M of the Royal Air Force flew over, its peculiar propellers with eight scythe-like blades shedding little corkscrew vortices of condensation.