A day of steady drizzle. A Grey Heron near the Italian Garden looked rather depressed.

Shovellers don't care how wet it is ...

... and neither do Tufted Ducks.

Blackbirds welcome rain, as it brings up worms.

Starlings feasted on wireworms in the soggy grass near the Round Pond. (Wireworms are not actually worms, they are the long thin larvae of click beetles.)

A male Pied Wagtail worked round the edge of the pond. They prefer the placed where waves have broken over the kerb, leaving little pools which seem to have stranded water creatures in them.

A female Chaffinch dug up a larva in the bushes near the bridge.

A Long-Tailed Tit hung from a twig ...

... and let go to fly away.

A young Herring Gull on the Serpentine had a vigorous wash and flap, and found a dead leaf which interested it for a second.

A Moorhen enjoyed climbing around on the moored rowing boats.

Cormorants contemplated the large orange plastic buoy which arrived at the Serpentine island several months ago.

Mute Swans like the taste of reeds. If it weren't for the netting around the reed bed they'd get in and completely trash it.

The pale Egyptian Goose at the Italian Garden and her mate are among the oldest inhabitants of the park. They arrived twenty years ago. They have now stopped trying to breed, a relief for all as they were hopeless parents and always lost all their goslings in a few days.

A clump of Honey Fungus glistened in the rain on a felled tree trunk.

Note: I've discovered why the videos in recent posts have not been appearing when the blog is viewed on a mobile phone. The disastrous Blogger update which has broken several things has introduced a different embedding code that doesn't work on mobiles. In this post I have put in an embedding code obtained from YouTube, inserted by hand in the HTML text of the blog. This now works on my mobile. Please let me know in the comments whether it has worked on your phone.

A Robin in the Rose Garden sang beautifully from the top of a rose bush.

Starlings waited on the roof of the Lido restaurant to swoop down on scraps.

There was a handsome variegated Feral Pigeon under a tree.

The odd couple of a Herring Gull and a Lesser Black-Backed Gull had a young gull with them, occasionally begging as if they were its parents and it was a hybrid. There are several mid-grey gulls on the lake that could possibly be hybrids of this kind. The offspring of these two closely related species are fertile, so there are all kinds of possibilities for intermediate forms.

A Black-Headed Gull boldly challenged a young Herring Gull for a bit of flatbread. Of course the bigger bird won.

Another young Herring Gull finished the remains of the pigeon killer's breakfast. The pigeon killer and his mate were away, probably looking for lunch in a new place where the pigeons were less wary and easier to catch. An ominous (and inaccurate) weather forecast had kept people out of the park and no one was feeding the birds in his usual place, so there were few pigeons there either.

A first year Black-Headed Gull had a brisk wash and flap.

The familiar EZ73323 stared out from his usual post beside the Serpentine.

The youngest Great Crested Grebes on the lake were making an unstoppable racket, one pursuing each parent. Their father took no notice. They are fed enough and are doing very well.

One of the two Bar-Headed x Greylag Goose hybrids that regularly visit the park took advantage of the small number of people to go up on the Parade Ground and eat some better grass that the scrawny stuff that grows next to the lake.

The Mallard family on the Round Pond, which survived against all odds, are now almost grown up.

There was a huge number of Pochards on the Long Water, almost all drakes -- the sexes migrate separately, but even when both are present males heavily outnumber females.

A Common Wasp (right) and its mimic, the hoverfly Myathropa florea, were side by side on an ivy flower. It's not really a very good mimic and even the human eye can easily tell them apart at a distance. Probably many birds can too, but even the slightest resemblance to a venomous species can help in the struggle to survive.

The hoverfly Eristalis pertinax does a better job of mimicking a dark Honeybee.

There wasn't a Honeybee on the ivy to compare, so here's a picture I took a while ago of one on a marigold.

The arbutus tree near the bridge attracted a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee.

The tree flowers in the autumn at the same time as its very slow developing fruits ripen. They both look slightly like and taste faintly of strawberries, hence the popular name 'strawberry tree'.

Pliny the Elder in his Natural History advised against keeping Honeybees near an arbutus, as the flowers make bitter tasting honey.

I am fairly sure that this Lesser Black-Backed Gull is the offspring of the notorious Pigeon Killer, and now several years old. It was on the shore below the Triangle Car park, where I've seen it hunting before but never witnessed it making a kill. I was holding my stills camera when it unexpectedly struck, and the thumbnail picture of this video was taken a fraction of a second later. I quickly switched to the video camera for the rest of this clip. You can see that it kills in the same way as its father, by biting through the victim's spinal cord.

At the other end of the lake the original gull found that there were no pigeons around and was looking a bit peeved. Rain had kept visitors away from the park, and the pigeons only mass when people are feeding the ducks.

A young Lesser Black-Back pestered a parent, in the typical low begging posture with head raised. The parent took absolutely no notice. When a young bird leaves the nest it's expected to look after itself.

A Grey Heron stood on a dead willow as the rain fell.

Another was on top of the big weeping beech in the Dell. A Carrion Crow decided to fly up to annoy it.

A pair of crows perched companionably side by side on a stack of deckchairs.

Two Pied Wagtails ran through the grass at the bottom of the Parade Ground. One of them found a small larva.

A Robin foraged in the wet undergrowth near the Dell.

No weather stops Long-Tailed Tits' ceaseless quest for insects.

Two pleasing pictures from Tom, taken yesterday. One of the pair of Coal Tits near the bridge perched on a holly twig, in exactly the same place as I've photographed it myself at least twice. I was feeding it while Tom took the picture -- you can't do both, as it's very camera shy and needs to be distracted.

Tom photographed this Wheatear on the river wall at Rainham Marshes.

The youngest two Great Crested Grebe chicks are now getting black crests. They're still far from independent, and constantly begging for food.

There were again six Shovellers on the Serpentine. A pair fed together by a reed bed, revolving to bring up little edible creatures in their wake. The other four saw Pigeon Killer approaching in a visibly bad mood and prudently got out of the way.

It's amazing that Shovellers manage to preen with their enormous blunt bills.

This Red Crested Pochard drake is now back in breeding plumage, with a big ginger bouffant hairdo.

The Black Swan remains on the Round Pond. It was heading for a faceoff with the biggest male Mute Swan, the only swan on the pond that it didn't force into submission when it first arrived.

The search for the elusive Ivy Bee in the ivy behind the Lido had to be called off today, because the drizzle kept all insects in cover except for a few hardy Common Wasps. David Element sent this fine picture of Ivy Bees taken at Mead Path.

A Giant Polypore fungus has appeared on a recently felled tree near the leaf yard.

A Barnacle Goose turned up on the Round Pond. There are occasional sightings here, the last one a couple of years ago, and it's probably the same bird every time. No one knows where it comes from, but it's quite tame and is probably the offspring of a pair in a collection.

Mute Swans enjoy the water intake here. A pair used it as a spot for a bit of courtship.

A skein of Canada Geese headed for a cumulus cloud.

The pair of Egyptian Geese at the Henry Moore sculpture wandered over the newly cleared bare ground. They're going to have a pleasant surprise next week when it's covered in delicious new turf.

There were six Shovellers on the Serpentine. A pair suddenly took off, and I just managed to snatch a hasty and rather poor shot.

The familiar Black-Headed Gull with ring EZ73323 came down from the post where it usually perches and had a preen.

The pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull is beginning to go into winter plumage, getting grey streaks on his head.

A young Herring Gull played with a football. In case you think this is an absolutely enormous gull, I should point out that the football is a miniature one for children.

A Robin ticked irritably at the Lido while in the background a Herring Gull moaned loudly, occasionally answered by a Lesser Black-Back.

A Grey Heron at the Lido restaurant noticed that it was nearly lunchtime. But probably it's always lunchtime for a heron.

Carrion Crows perched on the weathervane.

A crow found a bit of apple and trotted off to enjoy it in private.

Another found part of an ice cream cone still with a bit of ice cream, a real treat.

This pair of Jackdaws are often seen on the gravel bank in the Long Water. One played with a twig.

Two Starlings with rings: one at the Round Pond ...

... and another at the Lido.

Not enough of the numbers was visible to know if they were from the same ringing batch.

A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee negotiated a complicated penstemon flower in the Dell.