First patch Caspian Gull

I've decided to try and be a little more proactive about my birding in and around London in 2017 - it's about time I accepted that this is where I live, the birding will never be vintage and it's about making the most of what's in front of you.

The first step towards this is of course to adopt a patch. It'll inevitably lead to uninspiring, gull-heavy blog posts throughout the year, particularly given that Larids offer just about the only consistent point of interest in Central London, but I guess it's better than nothing ...

So, my adopted 'patch' will be the River Thames between Barnes Bridge and Craven Cottage, Fulham. This includes Leg o' Mutton (Lonsdale Road) Reservoir, where mature woods and dense patches of scrub should offer a glimmer of hope for interesting passerines at the right times of year. It'll likely end up including Barnes WWT, too, when I finally get sick of counting Herring Gulls and Cormorants on the river itself.

WWT or not, the patch fits comfortably within to the Patchwork Challenge area remit. So, I might as well give that a go too. Happily it'll qualify for the 'green' mini-league as I do all of my birding here either on foot or via bicycle. As such you can expect to find me loitering somewhere near the bottom of the table come December.

The River Thames at Barnes - the west end of the 'patch'

In the meantime I paid my first visit of 2017 to this stretch of the Thames today. Highlight was by far and away a third-winter Caspian Gull on the river off Lysia Street, Fulham. This is the same spot where I had an Iceland Gull in early December; birds seem to gather here routinely and it could be a fruitful place if watched regularly.

I identified this bird in the field as a second-winter (3cy) which, if you look at the perched shots, is fairly understandable. It was actually the presence of a green ring on its left leg which gave away this bird's age. Green XDFE was ringed as a chick at Gräbendorfer See in eastern Germany in June 2014. It has only been recorded a few times since, including at Dungeness in September 2014, and this is the first time it's been seen since summer 2015.

Actually there are a few tell-tale signs that this bird is in its fourth calendar year, but these are more apparent in flight. What is really striking is the restricted white in the outer primaries - with the restricted white mirror on p10 only, these look much more typical of a 3cy rather than 4cy bird.

Iceland Gull in Hammersmith!

I went for my first bike ride along the Thames for a couple of weeks this morning in the hope of finding a Caspian Gull. I had a Lithuanian Black-headed Gull at one of my usual spots in Chiswick (I'll blog about this bird at a later date) but only about 30 large gulls, so decided to continue east past Hammersmith Bridge and down towards Fulham.

This turned out to be a good move as I stumbled across a juvenile Iceland Gull among about 80 large gulls on the river adjacent to the Wetland Centre. This was actually the first time I'd biked down here this winter and it was nice to find a new spot for loafing gulls at low tide - Chiswick has generally been poor for numbers of large gulls in the past month.

Initial views of the Iceland Gull, Fulham, 2 December 2016

Eventually the bird showed pretty well, although steadfastly refused to show any interest in the four loaves of bread I threw at it. As such the scope for flight shots was minimal (I only grabbed a few as it flew past me towards Hammersmith) and I had to make do with perched shots at an awful angle and against a typically grubby Thames background.

After about half an hour the bird decided to fly off west upriver, over Hammersmith Bridge (thus in to my regular 'patch'!) before turning north and disappearing off over the West London skyline. It turns out that this is the same bird seen by Pete Alfrey at Beddington on 24 November and then by Dave Harris in the Island Barn Reservoir roost on 28th - not that that's surprising, given that there are so few Iceland Gulls in the country at present.

A white-winged gull with Hammersmith Bridge in the background - the stuff of dreams