Regent's Park/Primrose Hill

South side of Regent's Park looking NW

Location: Streetmap

Guide to birding sites: Regent's Park Bird-Sightings Map On arrival, there are detailed visitor maps displayed at the main access gates.

Regent's Park NW1 and Primrose Hill NW8, separated only by Prince Albert Road, together form one of the city's eight Royal Parks.

South of Prince Albert Road, stretching almost to Marylebone Road and Baker Street, is Regent's Park. Large (160 ha) and relatively flat, it is composed mainly of playing fields and formal gardens but features a few small, fenced-off groups of trees that collectively can be quite productive, notably the:

• Old Golf School Pen (area 39 on the sightings map)

• boundary of Leaf Yard Wood (a40/41)

• Cricket (a31) and Wetland (a32) Pens

• Wildlife Garden (a20) in the northwestern corner of Avenue Gardens,

plus more readily-accessible (and thus easily-disturbed) areas including the:

• open gorse and brambles of the 'chat bush' (just north of a34)

• plantings around the Ready Money Fountain on the Broad Walk (a28)

• northwestern border of the Rose Wheel (a17) in Queen Mary's Gardens, and

• St John's Lodge 'secret' garden (via the gate east of a30 on the Inner Circle road).

At the Park's southwestern edge is a reasonably-sized boating lake, home to a small heronry, a few pairs of Reed Warblers and one or two wintering Water Rails; however, it's shunned by most waders due to its concrete banks. Several years ago the city's second, wild Lesser Scaup was found on the lake (after it had gone missing from Brent Reservoir to the northwest); more recently two Bearded Tits, the first for Inner London, did a 3-day stopover in the lake reedbeds after wintering in Hyde Park. The best vantage-points for seeing wild (often feral) waterbirds are the:

• various footbridges, especially Longbridge (a35) and Hanover Bridge (at the southeastern end of a1)

• viewing platform (via the gate at the northeastern end of a35) and, especially,

• Holme Green shoreline (a9) near the Bandstand looking northwest toward Heron Island (a8).

Outside the breeding season, carefully examine the loafing gulls as most of them roost overnight elsewhere, probably in the Lee Valley reservoirs, so every day brings the potential for something unusual. If all else fails, the lake's extremities hold captive waterfowl to challenge your identification skills including Whooper Swan, Pink-footed Goose, Lesser White-fronted Goose, Barnacle Goose, Pintail, Garganey, Red-crested Pochard, Canvasback, Scaup, Lesser Scaup, Goldeneye and Smew.

North of Prince Albert Road lies Primrose Hill, featuring a lookout (a50) that is a good place to watch visible migration over Inner London. The closest tube station to the Hill is Chalk Farm, a 10-minute walk away.

NB Effective coverage of all the above hotspots normally requires 3-4 hours of brisk walking, as cycling between them is prohibited and the sites are well-spaced over an area nearly 2 kilometres across.

The patch really comes into its own during periods of migration. Maybe because it is one of the inner city's few sizable areas of green, or because it gets so much regular coverage, it does turn up some pretty good birds every year. Wheatears are fairly easy to spot when present but a more detailed look can reveal other interesting visitors such as (annually) Water Rail, Woodcock, Firecrest, Wood Warbler, Spotted and Pied Flycatchers, Common Redstart, Whinchat, Tree Pipit and (more rarely) Waxwing, Ring Ouzel and Stonechat. In autumn especially, the site briefly hosts noteworthy concentrations of leaf warblers (genus Phylloscopus): waves of Willow Warblers in August, and Chiffchaffs in late September and October, can respectively include Wood Warbler and Yellow-browed Warbler (two of each were recorded in 2014).

Among the post-war, London-Area rarities gracing the patch checklist are Ring-necked Duck, Ferruginous Duck, Lesser Scaup, Leach's Petrel (found dead), Black Kite, Montagu's Harrier, Crane, Golden Oriole, Red-backed Shrike, Great Grey Shrike, Hooded Crow, Melodious Warbler, Black-eared Wheatear¹ and Serin.

Being open city spaces, the Hill and Park both get a lot of joggers/dogwalkers/commuters/office workers having lunch, so to maximise your chances you should arrive as early as possible before anything unusual has been spooked. NB The Park gates - but not those on the Hill - are locked at dusk and remain so till 5:30am even when dawn has already broken.

To visit the area, the nearest tubes are: Baker Street (Hammersmith & City, Circle, Jubilee, Metropolitan and Bakerloo lines) to the southwest; Regent's Park (Bakerloo Line) and Great Portland Street (Hammersmith & City, Circle and Metropolitan lines), both to the southeast; Camden Town (Northern Line) and Chalk Farm (Northern Line), both to the northeast; and St John's Wood (Jubilee Line) to the northwest.

[Paul White (2006), with additional contributions.]

Guide to birding sites: Regent's Park Bird-Sightings Map

¹ The BBRC's arbitrary, retroactive deletion of this 1951 record (a half-century later, for no published reason) is contentious, not least because the lead adjudicator (of the two sets of observers' notes published in British Birds vol 46) is on record as having dipped on the bird fifty years earlier by taking a lie-in that morning(!) Questions of objectivity and transparency need answering in this case: the record should be reevaluated again, this time with clear and dispassionate reasons why discrepancies or deficiencies in the two accounts create significant uncertainty, if any, above subspecific level (O. h. hispanica v O. h. melanoleuca).

Yearlists

PATCHLIST 2015 (60 species as of 7 Jan):

Mute Swan, Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Egyptian Goose, Shelduck, Mandarin Duck, Gadwall, Mallard, Shoveler, Red-crested Pochard, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Little Grebe, Great Crested Grebe, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel, Peregrine, Moorhen, Coot, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Feral Pigeon, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Ring-necked Parakeet, Little Owl, Tawny Owl, Green Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Magpie, Jay, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Goldcrest, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Blackcap, Wren, Starling, Blackbird, Fieldfare, Song Thrush, Redwing, Mistle Thrush, Robin, Dunnock, House Sparrow, Grey Wagtail, Pied Wagtail, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Lesser Redpoll.

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PATCHLIST 2014 (113 species tbc):

Mute Swan, Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Egyptian Goose, Shelduck, Mandarin Duck, Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, Mallard, Shoveler, Red-crested Pochard, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Goosander, Cormorant, Grey Heron, Little Grebe, Great Crested Grebe, Honey-buzzard, Hen Harrier, Red Kite, Sparrowhawk, Buzzard, Osprey, Kestrel, Hobby, Peregrine, Water Rail, Moorhen, Coot, Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Common Sandpiper, Woodcock, Sandwich Tern, Common Tern, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull, Yellow-legged Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Feral Pigeon, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Turtle Dove, Cuckoo, Ring-necked Parakeet, Little Owl, Tawny Owl, Swift, Kingfisher, Green Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Magpie, Jay, Jackdaw, Rook, Carrion Crow, Goldcrest, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Woodlark, Skylark, Sand Martin, Swallow, House Martin, Yellow-browed Warbler, Wood Warbler, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat, Whitethroat, Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler, Treecreeper, Wren, Starling, Ring Ouzel, Blackbird, Fieldfare, Song Thrush, Redwing, Mistle Thrush, Spotted Flycatcher, Robin, Redstart, Whinchat, Stonechat, Wheatear, Dunnock, House Sparrow, Yellow Wagtail, Grey Wagtail, Pied Wagtail, Tree Pipit, Meadow Pipit, Chaffinch, Brambling, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Siskin, Linnet, Lesser Redpoll, Reed Bunting, Bullfinch.

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PATCHLIST 2008 (122 species):

Little Grebe, Great Crested Grebe, Cormorant, Little Egret, Grey Heron, Mute Swan, Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Egyptian Goose, Common Shelduck, Mandarin Duck, Mallard, Gadwall, Eurasian Wigeon, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Common Teal, Red-crested Pochard, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Greater Scaup, Ruddy Duck, Red Kite, Honey-buzzard, Common Buzzard, Osprey, Sparrowhawk, Peregrine Falcon, Hobby, Merlin, Common Kestrel, Moorhen, Coot, Water Rail, Common Snipe, Woodcock, Whimbrel, Dunlin, Common Sandpiper, Mediterranean Gull, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Yellow-legged Gull, Caspian Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Common Tern, Feral Pigeon, Turtle Dove, Collared Dove, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon, Eurasian Cuckoo, Ring-necked Parakeet, Tawny Owl, Little Owl, Common Swift, Kingfisher, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Green Woodpecker, Skylark, Woodlark, House Martin, Sand Martin, Barn Swallow, Water Pipit, Rock Pipit, Tree Pipit, Meadow Pipit, Pied Wagtail, Yellow Wagtail, Grey Wagtail, Wren, Dunnock, Blackbird, Ring Ouzel, Fieldfare, Mistle Thrush, Redwing, Song Thrush, Northern Wheatear, Stonechat, Whinchat, Spotted Flycatcher, Pied Flycatcher, Common Redstart, Robin, Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Blackcap, Garden Warbler, Wood Warbler, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Firecrest, Goldcrest, Long-tailed Tit, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Jay, Magpie, Jackdaw, Crow, Rook, Starling, House Sparrow, Chaffinch, Brambling, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Common Crossbill, Siskin, Mealy Redpoll, Lesser Redpoll, Linnet, Reed Bunting, Yellowhammer.

[Species in bold are new additions to the patch checklist.]