The Black Swan joined the group of Mute Swans on the bank of the Long Water near the bridge.

It's a comfortable place for swans to sit and preen, with grass and a fence to keep out dogs. Try as he may, the dominant Mute Swan pair on the Long Water can't keep them off it for long.

The Black Swan's number one girlfriend was in one of the ponds in the Italian Garden.

This is probably because she too came on to the Long Water and the dominant swan chased her in that direction. She can get out, of course, and there is another Mute Swan on the pond, an adult, to show her the way out if she doesn't know. But it's a bit of a hike to the nearest place where she can get down to the lake, and I expect to see the Black Swan back with girlfriend number two tomorrow.

The Egyptian Goose family near Bluebird Boats had lost another chick. They were sensibly keeping the four survivors under a waste bin where the gulls couldn't swoop on them.

Less sensibly, they had a pointless territorial dispute with another pair of Egyptians. The male rushed off to chase the others away, and when he came back in triumph the female walked over the meet him. It is at moments like this that the young get taken.

The other Grey Heron nest on the island had a heron in it, though it may have been one of the pair from the first nest simply using it as a place to stand while gathering twigs.

I am not absolutely sure that the first nest is occupied, but sometimes when I pass I can see a vague outline sticking just over the top. This may not even be a heron, it might be an Egyptian.

Another Heron was looking almost invisible in the reeds on the little artificial island in the Long Water.

They are not as well camouflaged as Bitterns, which have the colour and pattern of the reeds and stand with their heads pointing up, but they do quite well.

There were two pairs of Mandarins at Peter Pan.

Pied Wagtails are not worried by breaking waves. They just sprint out of the way.

The pair of Dunnocks in the leaf yard were chasing each other about. This one stayed still just long enough for a picture.

This Treecreeper was very near the place on the east side of the Long Water where I saw one a few days ago. There must be a nest here.

Just along the path, one of the young rabbits had come out into the clearing opposite Rudolf Steiner's bench. They are growing up fast.

A Sparrowhawk circled high over the Serpentine and was observed by Takaki Nemoto, who took this fine picture.

There were other predators around, and the Egyptian Geese at Bluebird Boats are down to five young. But they were following the instruction to look both ways.

One of the young rabbits near the Henry Moore statue was grazing peacefully under the eyes of four Grey Herons wanting it for lunch.

On the other side of the enclosure, a worm met its end in the beak of a Song Thrush.

A Kingfisher was looking for fish on the usual post on the Long Water.

A Lesser Black-Backed Gull gave the camera a menacing pale-eyed look as it called to its mate.

The Black Swan and girlfriend number one came over to be fed by some girls. The girlfriend bit one of them painfully on the hand.

Some Tufted Ducks were prettily lit on the Long Water.

And so was a Blue Tit in the yew tree near Peter Pan.

A Little Owl looked out of the oak tree and puffed itself up to emit a loud call.

I found the second box that had been put up for the Tawny Owls, in a lime tree a few yards south of the original nest tree. It is only 20 feet above the ground, much too low. The first box is 30 feet up, which is a bit too low as well.

There is another family of Egyptian Geese on the Serpentine, near Bluebird Boats. They have six chicks at the moment and are looking after them well, but the gulls are implacable and have accounted for all the young Egyptians at the Lido.

The Black Swan was at the landing stage near the Diana fountain, with girlfriend number one.

Later he moved off to where someone was feeding the birds, and the girlfriend went under the bridge on to the Long Water. She soon came scooting out, as the dominant male Mute Swan has now cleared his lake of all intruders and was patrolling menacingly back and forth along the bridge.

Two pairs of Great Crested Grebes were also having a territorial dispute on the Long Water.

The pair at the east end of the Serpentine were rebuilding their nest, damaged by yesterday's wind and waves. The reed rafts, which are anchored with inadequate bags of stones, had shifted and the nest site now has a fence close to both sides.

Nearby on the shore, a Magpie was having a brisk wash.

There were six Mandarins at Peter Pan.

I heard that Herring Gulls and Carrion Crows were pulling up the newly laid turf on the Parade Ground to look for insects and worms underneath. I found quite a lot of pulled-up turf but couldn't catch them at it. But there was a Pied Wagtail also looking for insects on the edge of a flooded area.

The Parade Ground is on a gentle slope and you might not expect it to flood, but there is only a thin layer of soil on top of an impervious expanse of London clay, and the drainage can't cope with even moderate rain.

The two promised Tawny Owl boxes have been put up. A quick visit found only one of them, on a tall horse chestnut a few feet north of the owls' original nest tree.

It's a handsome structure and would be a desirable residence for any owl, but will they like it? Are they nesting already in a hollow tree somewhere? No one knows.

Update: The London Bird Club Wiki has a brief note from Charlie Farrell, put up on Wednesday but I missed it then. He saw a Tawny Owl flying from the area of the old nest tree to the leaf yard. Also, Paul tells me that the other owl box is on a nearby lime tree.

At least we know where three pairs of Little Owls are. This is one in the tall lime tree near the Henry Moore sculpture.

And here is one in the oak tree near the Albert Memorial. It didn't come out till late afternoon.

It was a dark and stormy morning. There were quite large waves on the Serpentine, but the Great Crested Grebes didn't mind.

And a Moorhen was enjoying the surf.

There was another Moorhen doing the same thing farther along the shore. It does seem that they deliberately choose to stand in breaking waves.

The rafts at the east end of the Serpentine were tossing about, but the Black Swan was stubbornly carrying on with his nest building amid the wind-lashed reeds.

An Egyptian Goose was sheltering behind a plane tree, but still ruffled by the wind.

The white Mallard and his mate were looking for food in the debris washed up on the edge.

A Pied Wagtail had sensibly chosen to hunt on a windward shore to avoid being washed away by the waves.

A Robin was looking for insects in a sheltered waste bin at the Lido restaurant.

A Blue Tit was holding firmly on to a twig and singing.

I think it's one of the pair that nests in the lamp post at the back of the Lido.

A Treecreeper in the shrubbery on the east side of the Long Water was building a nest in a hole in a fallen branch.

This is one of the odd Mallards, of which there are several on the lake, all different. Jorgen thinks that it is a female with a hormonal imbalance that has caused her to develop partly male plumage.

A pair of Great Crested Grebes were building up the nest at the corner of the reed raft at the east end of the Serpentine. At first this seemed like a pleasant if unremarkable picture ...

... but then another pair of grebes came up and chased them off.

These must have been the original owners of the nest, which had been stolen by the other pair.

Two young Herring Gulls were hunting for worms in the Diana fountain enclosure, and one of them has now learnt the worm dance to perfection, and pulled up three worms inside a minute.

The other was not dancing so well and was bringing up fewer worms, but it will learn. However, there was also a Common Gull which had apparently copied the worm dance from the Herring Gulls, as I've never seen one doing this before. It had the pattering technique absolutely right ...

... but only caught one worm in the five minutes I watched it, perhaps because, being a lighter bird, it wasn't causing enough vibration.

The Egyptian Geese at the Lido have lost one chick and are down to five.

The pair on the Round Pond now have none. But before you get too upset about this, remember that the number of Egyptians in the park has increased from two twelve years ago to over 100 now.

In 1202 Leonardo of Pisa, usually known as Fibonacci, worked out how fast a pair of rabbits would multiply if all survived. He reckoned that rabbits reach breeding age in one month, and supposed that each fertile pair would produce two young. After 12 months there would be 233 pairs, or 466 rabbits. Our Egyptians reach breeding age in two years -- but suppose they had six in every brood and bred twice a year. I leave it to better mathematicians than me to work out how many there would be if they all survived.

The Black Swan was still with girlfriend number one today.

The girlfriends are getting harder to recognise as they turn white. Girlfriend one still has a larger patch of white on her left wing, though the difference is evening out. She also still has quite a dark top to her head, contrasting with white on the nape of her neck.

Here is girlfriend two, alone today and being fed by Jorgen. She is whiter than number one, and her most noticeable feature from a distance is two faint pale rings round her neck.

You will also notice a difference if you feed them out of your hand. Number one will bite you, but number two is very gentle.

One of the Mute Swans has laid an egg on a raft at the east end of the Serpentine, and was turning it over. There is no evidence of a nest being built, so it's not clear what's going on.

There are two other eggs on the rafts. One belongs to a Greylag Goose, which was sitting on it the second time we passed. The other seems to have been abandoned.

The onset of the nesting season has made the Mute Swans much more aggressive, and there have been several serious fights in the last few days.

This young female was chased by the resident male on the Long Water, took off in the direction of the Italian Garden, and tried to make a tight turn to head back to the Serpentine. But she misjudged it, hit a willow tree with her wing, and crashed ignominiously through the branches into the brambles. Fortunately she was not hurt, and after sitting in the brambles for a quarter of an hour she stood up.

However, the dominant male was still in the water and wouldn't let her come down. Probably he will have relaxed and gone away and she will have been able to sneak out. But Malcolm the wildlife officer was keeping an eye on her, and if she remained trapped he would have bundled her up in his canvas swan straitjacket and taken her to the Round Pond, home of low-status swans.