Three Jackdaws were reported by reliable observers between the Tawny Owls' tree and the Bayswater Road, being harassed by Carrion Crows. I went around the area but couldn't find them. They are rare visitors to the park, and I have only seen one anywhere near, on scaffolding in a street to the north of Kensington Gardens. However, Richmond Park has huge numbers of them, to the virtual exclusion of crows; they perch on the deer and eat their parasites.

While I was looking I did find a flock of about 20 Goldfinches in a tree. These are not common in the park either, and there are more in the neighbouring streets than in the park.

The male Tawny Owl called several times when I was in this area. He could be seen in his currently favoured lime tree. A Little Owl was also calling from a sweet chestnut tree just to the west of the one the pair nested in. It was invisible as usual.

The Egyptian Geese at the Round Pond have lost another three of their young, which are now down to six. The parents were not guarding them, but negligently grazing some distance away. A man told me that he had seen a crow killing and eating one of the young birds.

There is an unusually large number of Carrion Crows with white feathers at the Round Pond. It is quite usual for crows to have the occasional grey or white feather, but some of the birds I saw had much more white plumage than that.

When people throw bread to the waterfowl at the edge of the Serpentine there is a huge feeding frenzy, especially after the Black-Headed Gulls have returned for the winter. The Mute Swans and their cygnets are the bosses here, beating up ducks, geese and each other, while gulls of various sizes leap into the scrum for a hasty grab.

The male Tawny Owl has taken up a new station in a lime tree 20 yards west of the nest tree, near the top and viewable with slight difficulty from the east side. He was there yesterday and today; both times I was there, Jays were screaming at him, of which he takes no notice. Here he sleepily quarter-opens an eye to look at the human on the ground taking so much interest him.

Nearby a Ring-Necked Parakeet was mostly hidden in a hole in a plane tree on the path between the Physical Energy statue and the Speke obelisk. There are a lot of parakeets here, taking advantage of the many holes in these trees. Mandarin ducks have also investigated the area for nest sites, but decided against it and moved somewhere more sheltered. This is in the territory of the Tawny Owls, of course, and several parakeets have found themselves on the menu.

Here a first-year male Shoveller stares suspiciously at the camera. I gave him a piece of biscuit as a modelling fee.

And here is a close-up of the red-rimmed, curiously flecked eye of the pigeon-eating Lesser Black-Backed Gull, which was prowling along the edge of the lake looking for its next meal.

It is difficult not to see this pale stare as baleful, but it is only a bird doing what birds do. And there are so many pigeons in the park that the few taken by Lesser (and sometimes Great) Black-Backed Gulls and Peregrines and Sparrowhawks hardly make a dent in the population.

The Peregrines on the Metropole Hilton Hotel are not park residents, but they sometimes hunt over it when the pigeons in the Edgware Road are lying low, so they deserve a place in this blog. I went up to see them and found them missing from their usual daytime place on the hotel's tower. But as I left, one of them whizzed over me at a height of only 50 ft and landed on the police station on the north side of the flyover. That might have seemed a good chance of a photograph, since the birds are normally out of range up a 200 ft tower. But unfortunately the police station is surrounded by a series of ledges 2 ft wide, and unless a bird happens to be standing right at the outside edge, it is invisible from the street.

The best place to photograph the Peregrines would be to take the top room at the northeast corner of the main hotel block, which gives quite a good view of their usual place on the tower, though probably the windows don't open.

In the park itself it was a rather ordinary day, but the sunshine brought out the best in the birds. Here is a Starling looking magnificent in its brocade suit of feathers, standing on a notice at the Lido restaurant. It had just been scared away by a woman whose chocolate cake it wanted to share, but was not giving up just yet.

Cormorants are usually drab-looking birds, but in direct sunlight their plumage can have quite a glossy sheen.

A pair of Black-Headed Gulls were fighting over a scrap of food, screeching furiously.

Indifferent to the racket, a pair of Greylag Geese swept up the lake. When they come down on land, using their wings to the utmost to achieve a neat landing, their flight feathers make a sound like a basketwork chair creaking.

Two of the four young Great Crested Grebes from the nest by the bridge were practising the courtship dance they will perform in earnest when they grow up. They did the head-shaking routine ...

... and even had a try at the bit where they wave vegetation at each other.

This dance does not have to be learnt, despite its complexity: it is instinctive. On the other side of the Atlantic, the big Aechmophorus species -- Clark's and Western Grebes -- have a similar dance. But it does have to be practised with a partner to get it right, and sometimes you see inexperienced young adults making mistakes and losing the careful synchronisation that is an important part of the ritual.

A pair of Pied Wagtails bred in Kensington Palace this year, lending the place a bit of class. So both species of wagtail managed to breed; the Grey Wagtails nested under the plank bridge across the waterfall in the Dell and fledged one young bird. Thanks to Roy Sanderson for this information.

On the edge of the Serpentine a Greylag Goose was paying attention to its tail feathers. Thy have to last a whole year and must be carefully maintained.

And on the Long Water, a Grey Heron was standing on a bit of netting and poking its beak through the mesh. There must have been some small invertebrates under the net.

Herons will eat almost anything, large or small. My park friend Roy (not the same Roy as above) once brought in a whole pound of cooked sausages and fed them to a heron. It ate the lot, without pausing.

The male Tawny Owl was in the beech tree a few yards west of the nest tree, one of his favourite spots especially in early spring when the owlets are in the nest and he wants a bit of peace. He always sits in the same place in this tree. It is very easy to see in winter, but while the leaves are still on the trees there is only one place from which you can get a glimpse of him.

Two Little Owls were calling each other in the leaf yard. It seems perverse to be looking forward to winter, but it is only then that we get a reasonable chance of seeing them.

The number of Shovellers is slowly rising, but we are still a long way off the winter maximum, usually about 50 but considerably larger in some years.

Not a sign of the Long-Tailed Duck. I think it was on its way somewhere and only stayed a day.

The Diana fountain enclosure is popular with Greylag Geese. The grass is of excellent quality and there is a place to drink. And above all, dogs are not allowed in.

Here a Carrion Crow tries to have a Happy Meal. But all the containers were empty, so it was disappointed. I gave it a peanut as a consolation.

There was a report on the London Bird Club Wiki that a Long-Tailed Duck had been seen on the Long Water. I went carefully round the Long Water twice, and the Serpentine and Round Pond once, to try to see this unusual visitor, but with no luck. The Long Water has almost as much waterside vegetation as a natural lake and, even if a bird is there, it may escape notice. It is not the first Long-Tailed Duck to be seen in the park, and is probably an escape from a collection, but still very much worth looking for.

Odd ducks do often turn up on the lake. In recent years I have seen Garganey, Goldeneye, Pintail and Wigeon, perhaps visiting from the Wetland Centre at Barnes, perhaps from elsewhere.

One of the most noticeable escapes (noticeable in every sense) is the Mandarins, which presumably originated in Regent's Park as they breed along the Regent's Canal. Their attempts at breeding on the Long Water have been less successful because of the big gulls, and it is rare for a brood to survive any length of time. This male seen on the lake today was in his full finery.

Here is a second-year Herring Gull, to compare with the third-year one pictured in yesterday's post. It retains much of its tweedy first-year plumage but is beginning to go pale grey along the back.

Herring Gulls of these intermediate years are quite common on the Serpentine, but for some reason the Lesser Black-Backed Gulls are almost always either first-year or adult.

The three speckled Canada-Greylag hybrid geese which go around together, and are clearly siblings, are still on the lake.

And the number of Cormorants continues to increase: every day now there are more than 40. At the Serpentine island they have run out of posts to perch on and are having to stand on the baskets or under the trees on the island.

A changeable day of sunshine, showers and wind. Here a Common Gull chases a Black-Headed Gull over the rainbow. The Common Gull is easily identified in flight by the white 'windows' in its black wingtips, which are larger in proportion to the bird than those of the bigger Herring Gull.

A Kestrel was being harried by two Carrion Crows, and flew off to find somewhere quieter.

Some young Mute Swans were doing a bit of flying practice on the lake. At this age, they are in the air more often than adults, before the fun of flying wears off. Here one of them makes a smooth touchdown, waterskiing on its big black feet.

The gull in the foreground is a third-winter Herring Gull, with an almost complete suit of adult light grey on its back, but plenty of dark streaks on its head, neck and chest. The adult Herring Gull behind it has some dark streaks on its head when in winter plumage, but the rest of its front remains pure white.

Here a Wood Pigeon is making the most of this year's bumper crop of holly berries. The berries will all be eaten by various birds within weeks, so if you want a sprig of holly for your Christmas pudding, cut it now, and put it in the freezer in a plastic bag.

In contrast, this year is not a good one for yew berries, a favourite food of Blackbirds and Song Thrushes. I am keeping an eye on the yew bush to the north of Peter Pan, in front of the fallen horse chestnut tree, but so far have not seen much action.