Fulham Reach

From Londonbirders

A mostly urban patch, bordered to the North by the A4/District-Picadilly Line, the West by the Thames between Hammersmith Bridge and Crabtree Wharf, the South mostly by Lillie Road and to the East by Queens Club. It is made up of:

• the Thames, where you will see mostly gulls: plenty of black-headed gulls in the winter, some great black-backed gulls, lesser black-backed gulls, herring gulls amd common gulls; ducks: mallards all year round, tufted ducks, gadwalls and teals; geese: Canada geese mostly, but a few Egyptian geese are there more and more, including some paler individuals; cormorants; mute swans; starlings; crows; pied and grey wagtails; grey herons; moorhens; coots; great crested grebes; ring-necked parakeets; common tern; swifts; housemartins

• Margravine (or Hammersmith) Cemetery. It is now closed for burials, most of the graves have been grassed over, and many trees planted. It is home to great, blue and long-tailed tits, robins, blackbirds, dunnocks, wrens, goldfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches, woodpigeons, a few pairs of crows, magpies, a pair of greater spotted woodpecker, a pair of jays. Occsionnally seen are green woodpecker, mistle thrush, swifts on pretty much every summer evenings. No sparrow. Pigeons there are healthy.

• Abbey Gardens: described by estate agents as a quiet cul-de-sac, it feels more like suburbia than central London. Good numbers of sparrows and starlings.

• Frank Banfield Park: a rather small park, it was until recently home to a good colony of sparrows. It is currently under development and most of the existing trees and all of the existing shrubs and bushes have been cut, though plenty of new trees and bushes are to be planted again.