Grey Wagtail at the Lido

A very ordinary day was graced by the appearance of the Grey Wagtail on the edge of the Serpentine by the Lido restaurant.

Until recently you could only get Great Tits coming to your hand in certain places, such as the Flower Walk. Now they are popping up all over the park, along with a few Blue Tits which take confidence from their example. These were in a young oak near the Round Pond.

The Little Owl at the Round Pond was not visible on a grey windy day, but when I went past a second time I could hear her calling softly from inside the tree. Unfortunately the pestilential squirrel shows no desire to leave the lower hole.

Two Egyptian Geese on top of the tree glared down at a Carrion Crow which had landed on a branch.

The trunk has a strange bright lime green fungus on it. Closer inspection shows that it's an ordinary white fungus with green mould on it.

Rose-Ringed Parakeets fed on myrtle berries in the Flower Walk. These birds too are a thorough nuisance but undeniably pretty.

All the Starlings in the park converged on the grass ruined by the Winter Wasteland to pick up worms.

The Redwings haven't arrived yet, but they should be here any time now.

There were two Herring Gulls on the lawn in the Rose Garden. One was doing the worm dance and brought up two worms in half a minute. The other wasn't dancing and got nothing.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull had just dived into a crowd of Feral Pigeons at the Dell restaurant without making a catch. Now he was trying his technique of pretending to look away from the pigeons behind him, hoping one would come close enough for him to whip round and grab it.

The Lombardy poplar that fell into the lake a few days ago has sunk under the weight of Cormorants standing on it and they have gone away. But there are still plenty of perches for Black-Headed Gulls.

The wind kept people off the terrace at the Lido restaurant, but the young Grey Heron had turned up hopefully.

Another was fishing from the jetty at the Lido, probably quite a good place as fish lurk in the shadows under the platform and can be seized if they carelessly stick their heads out.

Nothing could be seen in the herons' nest on the island, but the mate of the sitting bird was down on the shore.

The widowed heron with the red bill was keeping up its lonely vigil on last year's nest. Apparently they don't mate for life as some birds do, so it's free to go and find a new mate if it can summon the energy to fly to Regent's Park.

Six Mute Swans came ashore at the Serpentine outflow to crop the grass. Evidently they had seen that the the resident fox was away.

Three Gadwalls cruised by. There are at least 20 in the park at the moment, but this is unlikely to last as they wander around at random.

Mark Williams was in Bushy Park, where he found a flock of 11 Meadow Pipits. Here we just get the occasional one, usually in the rough grass south of Kensington Palace.

He also photographed a Jackdaw waiting by a café table, just as the very bold and numerous Jackdaws in Richmond Park do. Our Jackdaws, who have only been here for ten years, are still shy except with people they have learnt to trust.