The male Tawny Owl was on the balcony on the nest tree, sleeping serenely in the rain.

The last sighting of the female owl was on the 18th. Maybe she has already retired to the nest for the long haul of laying and incubating eggs and looking after the owlets until they are able to fly -- over two months' work.

This Dunnock at the Buck Hill playground was absolutely saturated, and stood on a post, periodically shaking itself like a wet dog.

I suppose it had been creeping around in the wet bushes.

Several Lesser Black-Backed Gulls were eating crayfish. Here is a sequence of pictures from yesterday, when it was less dark, showing one dismantling a crayfish. These photographs were taken in the course of a few seconds. After pecking at it, in the process tearing off one of the unfortunate creature's legs ...

... it takes a firm grip on its middle ...

... and somehow manages to bite it in half.

Two Song Thrushes were singing loudly at each other in adjacent trees in the Dell.

Yesterday's picture of the Ring-Necked Parakeet on the Henry Moore arch brought a query from 'Jim, North London': 'Reportedly many members of the parrot order practise geophagy, i.e. eating or licking clay ... Perhaps the parakeet was instinctively drawn to the riverbank-like appearance of the travertine and checking it over?' I had been wondering on similar lines whether the stone -- travertine is calcium carbonate -- might be a source of calcium salts necessary for maintenance of bone and building eggshells. Calcium carbonate is soluble in acid rainwater, and it had rained hard the night before. Is the bird actually licking the stone in that picture?

Here is a picture of the same bird a few seconds before, walking around on top of the stone but not bending down to the surface.

This sculpture has become a favourite perch for Grey Herons, and the top is saturated with their copious droppings, which have dribbled down the outside. Possibly the parakeet didn't like this foul surface. The place it flew down to was inside the arch, and so quite clean.

The Great Black-Backed Gull was on the Serpentine island eating a crayfish when a Carrion Crow had the temerity to dart in and snatch it.

The gull leapt over a roll of netting and went for the crow ...

... and returned victorious with the crayfish in its beak.

Crows often succeed in stealing food from Lesser Black-Backs, which they are about on a par with when it comes to a fight. But I don't think this crow will mess with a Great Black-Back again.

There was another strange sight at the Henry Moore arch: a Ring-Necked Parakeet mountaineering its way up the overhang, hanging on with its sharp claws and, it seems from this picture, with its beak too, which parakeets often use as a 'third foot' when climbing along branches.

The sculpture is made of travertine, a kind of cut-price marble that is full of small holes. It was these that provided footholds for the bird. But it still fell off shortly after I had taken this picture. I have no idea why it was climbing on the stone -- possibly just to see if it could.

The male Tawny Owl was peacefully asleep on his balcony when a squirrel dashed past him and he woke up in a hurry and looked around angrily to see what had disturbed him.

I was reminded of Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, in which the squirrel is caught by Old Mr Brown the owl and escapes with the loss of his tail. But Nutkin was a red squirrel, and smaller than the American grey kind we have now. Incidentally, Beatrix Potter spent much of her girlhood a mile away from the park at 2 Bolton Gardens, and was taken for walks in Brompton Cemetery where she would have seen the name Nutkins on a tombstone beside the central path, and it is supposed that this is the source of the squirrel's name.

The rowan trees are still full of Starlings eating the berries.

There were also at least four Mistle Thrushes, which disobligingly ate the berries on the far side of the tree where I couldn't get a picture of them.

The Great Crested Grebes at the Serpentine bridge are still disputing their territory.

Yesterday Andy Sunters reported seeing what might have been a leucistic Blackbird or, much more excitingly, a Ring Ouzel, in the shrubbery between the bridge and the Diana memorial. I went around the area at sunset and found a blackbird with a few white feathers ...

... but it didn't look a bit like a Ring Ouzel, so the jury is still out on that.

There had been no sign of the Little Owls for several days, and we were beginning to think that they had changed trees because of an incursion of squirrels. But today at sunset the male owl appeared on his usual branch, preparing to go hunting when the park closed. This picture was taken a quarter of an hour after sunset.

The male Tawny Owl was on the balcony on the nest tree, fast asleep when I took this picture, but no doubt he was also preparing for an evening's work when I left the park.

There are still a few days to go before the female settles down in her nest, so we may yet see her.

There were half a dozen Mistle Thrushes in the rowan trees on Buck Hill.

Most of the berries at the top of the trees have now been eaten. This makes it easier to get a picture, as the birds have to come down to the sides of the trees.

There are also half a dozen Red Crested Pochards at the Serpentine island. Numbers vary a lot, as they seem to fly freely around the central London parks. The males are at their finest, with enormous fluffy crests.

There is a price to pay for this splendour. Most ducks, including the Common Pochard in the background, can see straight upwards, and keep watch for hawks and falcons overhead. A Red Crested Pochard can't, as its headdress is in the way.

Just two days after the new turf was laid around the Henry Moore sculpture, the rabbits are back in force. There were seven when I went past.

Only a few more rabbits need be born (and they will be, of course) before this grass needs no mowing.

A Great Black-Backed Gull was standing on a post near the Serpentine bridge.

It was overlooking the basket where the Cormorants and Great Crested Grebes fish. There was no sign of these, evidently deterred by this huge fierce creature. The grebes came back after it had gone away and resumed their long-running territorial dispute.

Small numbers of these gulls -- three is the most we have ever had at one time -- drift in and out of the park. It is not clear where they come from or go to: possibly the river, or they may be making a tour of the parks looking for food. There are plenty of pigeons for them, anyway.

On the Long Water, two Lesser Black-Backed Gulls were quarrelling over a large crayfish.

It had probably been caught in the Serpentine, since the Long Water does not have the shallow sloping edges that enable the gulls to dive for them. This one looks reddish, so it is probably an American signal crayfish.

The newly laid turf around the Henry Moore statue had attracted a couple of Moorhens, which were running around looking for small edible creatures but -- to judge by the amount of running relative to pecking -- not finding much.

It is sterile turf grown on a turf farm and would not have much animal life in it. But in a few months it will crawling with insects and worms.

One of the Little Grebes appeared near the Italian Garden.

It caught a fish but was immediately attacked by a Black-Headed Gull and retired into the shelter of the reeds to eat it.

Only the female Tawny Owl was out today, on her usual balcony.

Several people were looking for her mate, but didn't find him.

Both the Tawny Owls were out today, side by side on their balcony, awake and taking notice. The female is on the left of the picture.

This morning Lida, who had come to look at the Little Owls' tree, saw squirrels going into the holes in the tree and was worried about the owls' safety. I think that a Little Owl could probably see off a squirrel if annoyed, with a slash of its razor-sharp talons. On the other hand, if squirrels have taken to that tree it might cause the owls to shift to another tree where they would not be bothered by intruders. They have already changed trees once, going from the sweet chestnut they occupied last year to the next one up the slope. The tree was also full of parakeets, but they are not serious contenders -- and indeed the larger Tawny Owls view them as lunch.

Three Nuthatches came down to be fed from the railings. They are quite used to this now, and show no fear of us, though I don't think I shall ever get one to feed from my hand.

Purely from a photographic point of view, it's a pity that they perch on one section of rail and reach round the back of the post to take food from the next, so you get a great big bit of iron in the way.

And two of the Coal Tits came to my hand to be fed. They are also confident now, and less nervous about being knocked out of the way by the larger tits. But there is definitely an order of precedence, and bigger birds are at the head of the queue.

There was just one female Blackbird in the rowan trees on Buck Hill.

Some Mistle Thrushes could be heard rattling in adjacent trees, but didn't come down. So far this winter I have heard Song Thrushes , Mistle Thrushes and Wood Pigeons singing quite often; a Great Tit was singing yesterday; and this morning a Goldcrest was singing too in a holly tree in the Flower Walk -- all these, of course, in addition to the Robins, which sing all year round.

A visitor was throwing pieces of bread for Black-Headed Gulls to catch in midair.

My favourite gull EY09813 has become much more adept at catching the pieces of biscuit I throw for it, and now seldom fails to grab them before they fall.

After yesterday's picture of a Lesser Black-Backed Gull swallowing a crayfish whole, here is one of a gull eating it in the conventional way, which is to rip it up and peck the meat out from the inside of the carapace.

Another, young Lesser Black-Back was diving for crayfish near the edge of the Serpentine. It brought one up shortly after this and flew away to devour it in its preferred manner.

This sudden flurry of crayfish eating may indicate that the crayfish have moved out of the deep bottom of the lake into shallower water, or that there are just a lot of crayfish now -- the people at Bluebird Boats are finding plenty in their net. Or it may be that the onset of winter has reduced the amount of food discarded by visitors, or a combination of any of these.

These intelligent, opportunistic birds can dive for marine animals, catch pigeons in the air, steal food from humans and forage for scraps. It is not surprising that they are so successful.

Although it was a mild day, hordes of Great Tits and Blue Tits, as well as Robins and two of the Coal Tits in the leaf yard, came streaming out to be fed. The supply of insects must be dwindling after being sustained by the fairly high temperatures of this autumn.

One of the Little Grebes appeared briefly in the reed bed near the Italian Garden.

Today it was the male Tawny Owl's turn to occupy the balcony on the nest tree. As usual, he was fast asleep.

In fact there is room for both of them here, but evidently she had business inside the tree. The nesting season is approaching. The balcony is an agreeable place for them because it is on the northeast side of the tree, out of the prevailing wind.

There have been reports of reasonable numbers of Redwing in London, so I went to the archery field in the northwest corner of Kensington Gardens, where the have often been seen in recent years. There was nothing but a lone Green Woodpecker in the middle of the field, foraging in the grass. This is a rotten picture, but it was taken from a distance of 70 yards in fading light.

Today's star visitor to the berry-laden rowan trees on Buck Hill was a male Chaffinch.

He is a seed-eating bird and is not interested in the pulpy outside of the berries which delight Mistle Thrushes and Starlings. You can see bits of berry stuck to his beak after he has been excavating the seeds.

A large flock of Ring-Necked Parakeets were having a Sunday meeting in a birch tree near the leaf yard, making a terrible racket.

One of the two pairs of Great Crested Grebes waging their endless struggle at the bridge had a moment when their opponents had got bored and gone away. They passed the time by playing a game based on their territorial display, diving and circling under water and surfacing for a head-shaking display. You could see that they were enjoying it and happy with each other. For a bird, love and war are two sides of the same thing.

The female Tawny Owl was in the same place as she has been for several days, the balcony on the side of the nest tree. This picture was taken in heavy rain, which she didn't seem to mind.

The male has not been visible for some time. I think he is probably in a nearby tree and we just haven't spotted him yet.

Yesterday when I was photographing the Coot trying to eat the crayfish, Wendy Marks, who runs the splendid blog Wino Wendy's Wildlife World, was below the bridge shooting the same thing. She stayed longer than I did, and was rewarded with the spectacle of a Lesser Black-Backed Gull having greater success. Here are her fine pictures:

It's hard to imagine how the bird managed to swallow the creature claws first.