The pigeon-killing Lesser Black-Backed Gull had a change from his usual diet when he found an uneaten hot dog at the Dell restaurant.

The Black Swan has now settled down on the shore nearby, where park visitors collect to throw unsuitable food to the waterfowl.

The young Mute Swan which was stranded in the Italian Garden fountain for several days with a minor wing injury seems to like the place. It has returned to the same pool.

More Shovellers have arrived on the Long Water.

There are now a dozen Common Gulls on the Round Pond.

A young Grey Heron looked for fish under the small waterfall in the Dell. I've never seen a heron catch a fish here, but they must succeed occasionally or they wouldn't hang around here.

Herons can balance on anything, even the top of a net, without apparent effort.

A Carrion Crow was less comfortable perching on the spiked railings near the bridge.

Another drank in the pool at the top of the Dell.

A Robin came out of a flower bed in the Rose Garden to eat seeds spilt from a feeder.

A few feet away a Wren perched on a rose bush.

A Coal Tit ate a pine nut. They like to live in pine trees and prise the seeds out of the cones.

A Blackbird ate fruit in a rowan on Buck Hill.

There was no sign here of yesterday's flock of Mistle Thrushes.

Glad to say that the Black Swan is still on the Serpentine ...

... but the dominant Mute Swan was not so pleased.

The sunlight caught the dark green head of a Shoveller drake as he spun at the Vista.

There were two Red-Crested Pochard drakes under the trees at the edge.

Coots were fighting as usual ...

... and a Great Crested Grebe was doing nothing except looking elegant.

At the bridge a Grey Heron and a Cormorant took a rest from fishing.

The old heron nest on the island, now partly collapsed, still makes a useful perch.

A squirrel insouciantly sat on a tree under the terrible beak of a heron.

Feeding the birds at the Dell restaurant attracts a dense cloud of Black-Headed Gulls.

A flock of about thirty Mistle Thrushes flew over Buck Hill. Later I found them in the rowan trees ...

... and on the grass.

The people who feed the Rose-Ringed Parakeets at the leaf yard also attract large numbers of Magpies.

A Jay hopped around on the grass near the Rose Garden, perhaps looking for worms, perhaps trying to remember where it buried an acorn.

Another perched in a horse chestnut tree near the Italian Garden ...

... as a flock of Long-Tailed Tits passed through the hawthorns.

A Coal Tit looked out from a holly tree near the bridge.

Refilling the feeders in the Rose Garden immediately attracted a Chaffinch, which took a seed and ate it on a branch.

Look who's back! The Black Swan left us for St James's Park last year, and we have missed her. Today she was back on the Serpentine as if nothing had happened.

The Peregrines also honoured us with a visit. They looked at each other from a distance and the female fluffed up her feathers -- what a falconer would call 'rousing'.

Otherwise it was a pretty ordinary day. Whenever I visit Buck Hill now, this Jay is always waiting for me in the same tree.

And what seems to be the only Mistle Thrush perches at the top of a tall birch, waiting for another one that never seems to arrive.

A Starling ate yew berries in a tree near Peter Pan.

Starling flocks have their favourite trees, for no clear reason. There are always a lot of them chattering in this small black lime on the edge of the Serpentine.

The look from a Coal Tit that means 'I want a pine nut, and I want it now.'

A flock of Long-Tailed Tits moved along the edge of the Serpentine.

A Wren hopped around under the red stems of dogwood bushes at the Lido.

A Heron stood on the bridge in front of a red Japanese maple tree.

Even when herons are only a few months old, their bills have an oddly tatty look.

A Great Crested Grebe fished among the wire baskets under the bridge.

A pair of Shovellers revolved at the Vista. It really makes you giddy looking at these endlessly gyrating birds. But they are well used to it.

There are large mixed flocks of Pochards and Tufted Ducks under the trees bordering the Long Water.

Ducks really don't need duckboards, and it was quite unusual to see a Mallard preening on one in the Italian Garden fountain.

The two Peregrines were on the barracks again. The male got restless ... 

... and whizzed off at a speed that made him impossible to track with the camera.

The other scourge of the Feral Pigeons, the notorious Lesser Black-Backed Gull, had already eaten and was enjoying a scratch.

Two Coots examined the remains of the victim and went away without touching it.

A Grey Heron posed elegantly on the bridge.

Another was reflected in the stream in the Dell.

The Mallard drakes are looking smart and shiny in their new plumage.

The secondary feathers of an Egyptian Goose's wing also shine beautifully in the sunshine.

A Cormorant flew down the Long Water.

A Carrion Crow emerged dripping wet from a bath in the lake.

A Jay waited to to swoop down and seize a peanut from my hand.

A Mistle Thrush perched in a treetop on Buck Hill, rattling loudly to attract others so that they could have a mass raid on the rowan tree.

It seems strange that other thrushes -- Song Thrushes, Blackbirds, Redwings and Fieldfares -- are happy to visit the tree on their own, but Mistle Thrushes always need to have company.

A Wren appeared in a bush on the edge of the Long Water.

A Coal Tit perched among the pink leaves of a shrub near the bridge.

It's almost impossible to video Long-Tailed Tits as they dash about in a tree. But if you zoom out you can get an impression of the flock moving through the twigs.

The big yew tree near the Queen's Temple has a rather battered Chicken of the Woods at the base of its trunk.