Grey Seal at Hammersmith Bridge

The river was particularly busy with rowing and kayaking crews out in force today. The crowded water, combined with a large volume of Fulham fans walking up to Craven Cottage for their FA Cup tie against Hull, meant the number of birds was well down on what it can be - Teal, for example, were more or less non-existent between Hammersmith Bridge and the football ground.

Most of the gulls were floating around aimlessly overhead - even my bread wasn't enticing them to linger long. Curiously, I noticed the birds suddenly go absolutely mental just upstream from Hammersmith Bridge but nothing big was flying over. The birds were circling low over the water and it was instantly apparent why - a seal's head had popped up mid-channel!

It was a big beast, a male, and looked like a Grey Seal - confirmed by experts on Twitter. It seemed a bit perplexed by the large numbers of rowers going past almost constantly and ended up lingering just downstream of the bridge - it was still there, and showing well, when I came back past the bridge an hour later. It was surfacing about once every five minutes and I managed some decent photos after jumping down from the river wall and sitting by the edge of the water.

Looking at sightings of marine mammals in London on the ZSL website, it seems this isn't quite as unexpected as I'd anticipated. Indeed one individual (possibly the same) was seen as far up the river as Richmond on Saturday.

Otherwise, a couple of NTGG rings were as good as it got - P2MT (4cy) and R5ZT (2cy).

Mid-January patch efforts

It remains cold across much of Britain, particularly the south-east, and such conditions usually mean winter birding is at its most productive in London.

It was grey and misty when I headed out late morning. An impressive flock of Tufted Ducks has formed on the Chiswick-Barnes stretch of the Thames, although the amassed group of 101 failed to throw up anything more interesting.

The wetlands centre was pretty decent - great views of two Bitterns including the below individual, which bizarrely stood more or less motionless on the frozen ice in front of Headley Hide for 10 minutes, before slinking off back in to the reeds. A Jack Snipe was flushed by crows just before Wildside Hide, flying around my head a few times before dropping back in to the reeds. I glimpsed a Water Pipit on the grazing marsh and heard the Bearded Tit pinging in the reeds on one occasion. Nine Pintail included six drakes but wildfowl numbers seemed slightly down on my visit the previous week, presumably because of the freeze. A flock of Fieldfares moved through and both Cetti's Warbler and Water Rail were new for the year for me. About 40 Herring, 10 Lesser Black-backed and a few Great Black-backed made up the gull flock.

You ain't fooling no-one, pal ...

That's more like it.

A check of the Hammersmith-Fulham stretch of the River Thames revealed my first Yellow-legged Gull of the year, a rather smart adult, among just 30 or so Herring Gulls. A Little Egret was at Chiswick Eyot mid-afternoon, another new bird for the year for me.

Adult Yellow-legged Gull, Fulham, 23 January 2017

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.