A political demonstration had brought crowds trailing round the Serpentine, and the small birds had left their usual bushes near the bridge and moved to a bramble patch near the Queen's Temple, where a Great Tit came out expecting to be fed.

A Blue Tit was waiting in a nearby yew tree.

Surprisingly, there were Redwings on the Parade Ground only yards from a crowd being harangued through a loudhailer.

And a Pied Wagtail was wading imperturbably in a puddle.

A pretty background of brown hornbeam leaves gave an excuse for publishing yet another picture of a Robin.

A Carrion Crow was shining in the sunlight and looking very pleased with itself in a tree near the Dell.

Charlie and Melissa were not to be seen. Perhaps someone has spoken sharply to them about eating Egyptian babies, and they are in a huff.

But there were lots of Jays all over Kensington Gardens.

Two Coots were  fighting in the middle of the Serpentine.

The sun lit the fins of a perch for the last time as it was swallowed by a Great Crested Grebe.

At Peter Pan, the Mallard with a white front was looking positively luminous.

The female Little Owl was basking in the sunshine in the lime tree near the Henry Moore sculpture.

For a change, it was the male Little Owl who was looking out of the oak tree near the Albert Memorial. How much smaller he is than his mate.

Two Treecreepers were climbing up the trunk a few feet away.

Fran visited Brent Reservoir (better known as the Welsh Harp, because of its shape) and photographed the Black Swan there. Her picture of its face is on the left, compared with a picture of the one on the Serpentine taken last year. I don't think it is our swan.

She said that the Brent swan 'was friendly but seemed smaller, more dishevelled'. In a comment on yesterday's blog, Jim said, 'There's also been a Black Swan upriver for many weeks, currently at Kingston.' This is a likely candidate for our swan, since he was last seen going that way, at Barn Elms.

Sad to say, the Egyptian Geese at the Henry Moore sculpture have lost all their young except one.

Paul, who had been watching them earlier, said that he thought Carrion Crows were responsible, as they had been trying to get the survivor. These are no other than our familiar Charlie and Melissa, but you can't expect crows to behave nicely no matter how many peanuts you give them.

Just up the hill, the female Little Owl was surveying the scene from the lime tree.

A pair of Long-Tailed Tits were leaping about in the next tree.

Two Magpies were bathing at the Lido.

A Robin near the bridge looked fine in the sunlight when it came out to be fed.

The Redwings were in their usual place at the bottom of the Parade Ground, though too far away for a good picture.

A Pied Wagtail came a bit nearer and caught a small bug.

A Song Thrush was also hunting on the grass. But this is another one, singing from the top of a tree in the leaf yard.

The Kingfisher was back in the dead willow by the Italian Garden.

There were more Cormorants today, at least a dozen. One jumped on to a post near the bridge with a desperate flap, and landed successfully.

A Great Crested Grebe's fine new crest was tousled by the brisk east wind.

A young Herring Gull was playing with a bit of broken tile, overgrown with algae, that it had dredged up from the bottom of the lake.

Looking across the Long Water to the Henry Moore enclosure, you can just see that the Egyptian Geese still have five young.

Much of the time they are kept under their mother's wings to shield them from the big gulls.

A pair of Mute Swans trying to make a nest in the reed bed near the Diana fountain were evicted by the local bully.

Another swan struck a dramatic attitude at the end of a preening session.

This picture, taken by Simon Worsfold, shows a Black Swan at Brent Reservoir, where it has been for some time. It looks very like the one that stayed in the park for eleven months, still sadly missed.

There is another solitary Black Swan in Beddington Reservoir, of which I don't have a picture.

A Pochard stared at the camera.

A Great Crested Grebe caught a fish near the Serpentine outflow.

This Cormorant fishing in one of the Italian Garden ponds had caught a perch, but had to discard a lot of unwanted vegetation swallowing it.

The Redwings on the Parade Ground were disturbed by leaf blowers and took to the trees.

A Pied Wagtail looked down from the kerb at the edge of the Serpentine before leaping to catch some tiny creature.

Two Carrion Crows were bathing in the Diana fountain in the Rose Garden.

(It has a stature of the goddess Diana on it, nothing to do with the princess.)

A Blue Tit waited impatiently for some Rose-Ringed Parakeets to stop hogging the feeder.

Only one Little Owl was visible, the one in the lime tree. The first time I passed it was crouching low in the hole to keep out of the rain, and this picture was taken at a second visit.

While I was shuffling around trying to get a picture the first time, I turned round and found that two Grey Herons had arrived and were looking hopeful. They get fed on this part of the Vista, and now assume that anyone standing there has brought food for them.

The dominant Mute Swan pair on the Long Water were exploring a possible nest site in the reeds on the east side.

The male swan knows perfectly well that this is a bad choice, because he lost his previous mate to a fox in exactly this place. But the house-hunting ritual has to be gone through. Almost certainly they will settle on the artificial island that was built for them, though they have made a hole in it by obsessively pulling up reeds.

A few yards off in the dead willow tree, the Kingfisher was visible again.

Two Cormorants were fishing in one of the Italian Garden ponds. One caught a fair-sized perch.

The Redwings on the Parade Ground were a long way up the hill, and the fence made it impossible to get near them, but there were plenty of them.

A Fieldfare came slightly closer and pulled up a worm.

A Pied Wagtail sprinted along the edge of the Serpentine.

A Long-Tailed Tit stared at the camera from a thicket near the Lido.

There were also lots of Robins. We need to have a picture of a Robin from time to time.

Egyptian Geese not only have no sense of timing about breeding, they have no sense of place either. A muddy puddle is not a romantic spot.

The Egyptian family at the Vista were too far away for a good picture, but they certainly still have chicks. Two were visible, and the mother had her wings stretched over others.

This young Herring Gull has learnt two things. One is that it's easy to snatch a peanut from a Carrion Crow. The other is that peanuts are not just toys, they are edible. It can now open them and extract the nuts as quickly as a crow can.

Young Black-Headed Gulls play with toys almost as much as young Herring Gulls. This one has a willow twig.

The head-up gesture made by this Lesser Black-Backed Gull, accompanied by a quiet moaning cry, seems to mean 'Let's go.' Both gulls took off together a second later.

The female Little Owl near the Henry Moore sculpture stoically sat out in the morning drizzle.

And the one near the Albert Memorial stayed in her hole even when the weather brightened up a bit in the afternoon.