It was a windy day, and gulls were wheeling over the lake -- these are all the small, agile Black-Headed Gulls. It seems that they enjoy the wind, as Carrion Crows, Jackdaws and all the birds of prey do.

The wind kept the Little Owls inside their tree, but the male Tawny Owl was out on the beech tree, on a branch on the sheltered side of the trunk.

When I went past the tree a second time he was being mobbed by Magpies and Jays, and as I arrived he lost patience with them and flew across to his nest hole in the neighbouring horse chestnut.

There were at least 20 Cormorants on the lake. This one had been fishing in one of the wire baskets near the bridge, and was taking a pause for digestion and scratching its ear.

One of the Shovellers on the Long Water came over to the west side so that his fine plumage could be admired.

There were again several Mistle Thrushes eating berries in the rowan trees on Buck Hill.

I have yet to see another Redwing there, or anywhere in the park so far.

Charlie the Carrion Crow was dunking a peanut in a puddle. Crows don't like dry food. They would always dunk digestive biscuits if possible, and recently have gone off them altogether.

The Diana fountain is closed for repairs -- they are laying more drains around this long-running engineering disaster -- and the deserted lawn had attracted one of the Jackdaws.

It is noticeable that birds which eat small invertebrates prefer areas of grass where good topsoil has been laid with high-quality turf on top. In this enclosure, the original clay soil was replaced to a depth of several feet in an effort to improve its drainage and prevent the floods which occurred immediately after it was opened, and turf was bought from a firm specialising in football pitches. So whenever the place is not full of humans it is popular with Herring Gulls and Pied Wagtails, as well as with geese which enjoy the lush grazing.

This female Pied Wagtail was enjoying the bugs in another patch of expensive turf in the recently landscaped lawn of Kensington Palace.

The rowan trees on Buck Hill were full of birds after the berries. The fruit on the most heavily laden tree seems to be ripe at last; the other trees have already been stripped almost bare. There were several Blackbirds ...

and Mistle Thrushes ...

... and when these had had their fill and left, a Song Thrush, no longer threatened by the larger birds, flew into the top of the tree.

Several Jays followed me around touting for peanuts. After many tries, I managed to get a picture of one snatching a nut from the railings. They come down like lightning, grab and leave in an instant.

On the Serpentine, a Black-Headed Gull had dredged up a completely mysterious object.

Whatever it was, it didn't seem to be edible, and after throwing it around for a bit the gull let it sink again.

A Moorhen was also searching in vain for food. The pedalos have just been cleaned before being put away for the winter, and there was not a bug to be found.

The male Little Owl was on his favourite branch in the nest tree.

This peculiar fungus was growing in the shrubbery a few yards from the bridge. It is about 8 inches tall and 4 inches across the cap.

I think it is a very large specimen of a Pestle puffball (Lycoperdon excipuliforme). It is certainly some kind of puffball, because a broken one was lying nearby and you could see that it had a featureless white interior, with a crumbly texture.

There may be more than one pigeon-hunting gull on the Serpentine.  Walking along the north shore towards the Dell, first I found this Lesser Black-Backed Gull eating a Feral Pigeon. This is not our familiar gull -- it has paler legs.

Next I found the usual gull, which for some days has been trying out a new technique of flying in and swooping at pigeons on the ground. I haven't yet seen it succeeding in catching one by this method.

And then there was another pigeon carcase which was being picked clean by a scavenging Magpie.

There seem to be too many dead pigeons for them all to be the work of one gull, however large, hungry and fierce. The habit was expected to spread, and it's surprising that it didn't spread sooner.

A good number of Common Gulls have now arrived, and there were at least a dozen on the Round Pond. This one was preening its wing on a post near Peter Pan.

Common Gulls arrive later and are far less numerous than the smaller Black-Headed Gulls. In past years there have been plenty of them feeding on the Parade Ground, but the hideous German funfair that now blights the park every winter has forced them out.

One of the young Great Crested Grebes on the Long Water was showing considerable skill in catching small perch, hauling them up at the rate of several a minute. It takes young grebes quite a while to become as good at hunting as their parents.

A Dunnock was occasionally visible in the Sunken Garden, rooting around in the flower beds. I didn't get a picture of this shy and elusive bird, but I did manage to photograph a Wren hopping around on the flagstones.

The male Little Owl was on his favourite branch in the nest tree.

I had to leave before the Tawny Owl appeared. At present he usually comes out around 3.30.

This fungus was growing on the beech tree next to his nest tree.

I think it is an Oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus. If so it is edible, and they are on sale in expensive shops. However, this one is 40 ft up the tree.

The male Tawny Owl was dozing peacefully in the sunshine on his usual place on the nest tree ...

... when he was visited by three Magpies who did their best to annoy him. One perched in front of his face and screeched at him, while he stared at it impassively ...

... and another perched on a branch above, yelling insults. He didn't even bother to turn round for that.

After a few minutes they gave up and flew away.

Lower down in the same tree, a female Ring-Necked Parakeet was squeezing herself out of a small hole. This was originally a Starlings' nest and is a very tight fit for a larger bird.

The hole is used by what appeared at first sight to be a couple, but on closer inspection they turned out to be both female so maybe they are just good friends.

The male Little Owl was having an easier time in the chestnut next to his nest tree. Three Jays flew in and didn't notice him, because he was tucked up in the leaves at the top of the tree, so a confrontation was avoided.

A Grey Heron was also dozing in the sunlight at the top of a tree near the Serpentine island, looking so much like a continuation of the trunk that I almost didn't notice it.

This Carrion Crow on the edge of the Serpentine is one of my regulars, and I gave it a piece of biscuit. A Coot strolled up and seized it from under the crow's feet. The crow didn't retaliate. I think it was just astonished.

There was a good stand of Parasol mushrooms (Macrolepiota procera) in the open grass halfway between the Serpentine Gallery and the Queen's Temple. This rather dim picture was taken in fading light just as it was coming on to rain.

I picked them and will cook them for supper. (Update: And very good they were.)

This is the first Redwing I have seen in the park this year, unfortunately on the far side of a tree and about to fly away. There have been plenty of Redwings in outer London, but they take a while to move into the centre.

The tree was one of the rowans on Buck Hill, which also had some Mistle Thrushes and a Jay eating the berries.

There were four Jackdaws on the north side of the Serpentine, wandering around freely because the park was almost deserted in the rain. This one fished a crisp packet out of a bin, and turned it upside down and shook it to get the crumbs out.

A Carrion Crow in the Dell had a more substantial meal, the remains of a Feral Pigeon.

Perhaps the pigeon had fallen victim to the notorious Lesser Black-Backed Gull. But he and his mate were sharing a fresh kill on pavement at the other side of the restaurant. He is the one on the left, distinguishable by his bright yellow legs.

The male Tawny Owl was on the same branch in the beech tree next to his nest tree, despite heavy rain. To see this place you have to stand under the nest tree and look up through its lower branches, which have now lost their leaves.

The female Little Owl was in her nest tree, also ignoring the rain. I didn't see her mate.

This Black-Headed Gull on a post at the Vista is a visitor from Norway.

The first letter on its plastic ring, J0TR, indicates the country in which it was ringed. Its metal ring reads STAVANGER MUSEUM K 03111. The bird has been seen and photographed in Kensington Gardens before, on 27 October 2013, when it was still in tweedy first-year plumage. You can see from its rather pale orange-red legs that it is still quite young. In future years they will turn deep red.

Other winter visitors include some Mistle Thrushes. They are already behaving as if they owned the place. This one, in the rowan trees on Buck Hill, was with a party that had chased some Blackbirds out of the tree ...

... and this one, on a tree near the Albert Memorial, was rattling menacingly at one of the resident pair of Song Thrushes.

More visitors: there were nine Red Crested Pochards in the swimming area at the Lido. This one had dived to haul up some algae. They are vegetarians, unlike ...

... Tufted Ducks, which eat insects, molluscs and other small creatures as well as plants. This drake was looking particularly smart in his brand new breeding plumage.

The male Little Owl was shifting around restlessly. He moved between branches in the chestnut tree next to the nest tree, then flew into the nest tree, and finally disappeared into the nest entrance.

The male Tawny Owl was sitting quietly in the beech tree next to his nest tree. This is quite a well sheltered place, and he had not been spotted by any Jays or Magpies and could enjoy his daytime rest.

His mate should appear quite soon.

A sunny Saturday with a lot of people in the park is never a very wonderful time for seeing birds, but at least the male Little Owl had come out to lend a bit of distinction to the proceedings. He was in the chestnut tree next to the nest tree.

These two young Great Crested Grebes on the Long Water are always together, and always copying each other's actions. Here they were having a preening session.

So was a male Pochard neat Peter Pan, with his shiny ginger head and red eye looking splendid in the sunshine.

A Feral Pigeon on a duckboard in the Italian Garden was having a really thorough bath, deliberately getting completely saturated to wash out as many as possible of its parasites.

A Grey Heron on a post on the Long Water was languidly stretching one of its enormous wings.

The eight young Egyptian Geese at the Round Pond are still in good order, and were casually wandering around among the hordes of visitors.

This family, hatched at a most unlikely time, has been a remarkable success. We are now hoping that the coming cold weather reduces the number of people feeding them, so that they can get through the vulnerable time when their wings are developing without being overfed on bread that may give some of them 'angel wing'.

The autumn fungi now include some Shaggy Parasol mushrooms (Macrolepiota rhacodes) near the bridge.

These are edible, but not as good as the taller Parasol (Macrolepiota procera), of which there are smaller numbers in the park. Last year there was a good stand of these in the shrubbery on the east side of the Long Water, a short way north of the Henry Moore sculpture.