Three Days in Prague 8th - 11th January

My first visit to the city of Prague and I couldn't decide whether to bother taking the camera. In the end I took the 300mm lens, 2x converter and 5D III which fit neatly in my carry-on luggage case, which is all I was taking. I was glad I did!
We flew directly to Prague from Manchester with Easyjet on a package booked through Thomas Cook staying at the 4* Hotel Elite on the edge of the old town, which I would recommend, and close to the river. All in for £250 for two is probably as cheap as I could get a weekend in Manchester.
It was cold, around zero degrees on our first day and after a walk around the town we headed for the river Vltava. 
Plenty of Black-headed Gulls and Greater Cormorant, Mallard, around 100 Tufted Duck, 4 Pochard and several Little Grebe. There were several larger gulls on concrete pillars in the centre of the river but as they periodically flew closer I could see that there was a mixture of Herring and Caspian Gulls. Several landed reasonably close to where I was stood and I managed some reasonable shots of first winter and adult Caspian Gull.

Caspian Gull 1st winter

Caspian Gull adult

Crossing the river we entered Petrin Park. There were not many birds but several Jay, Nuthatch, Great Spotted Woodpecker and one or two Short-toed Treecreeper plus a single Marsh Tit. I managed some decent photos of the treecreeper and have made a composite with a photo of a Eurasian Treecreeper taken in the UK for comparison.

Short-toed Treecreeper (L) v Eurasian Treecreeper (race brittanica)

I've seen quite a few Short-toed Treecreepers in the last few years and have concluded that there is no single feature that reliably separates the two species, other than voice, but they can be distinguished by a combination of field characteristics; Short-toed Treecreeper is generally;

• greyer below with buffish flanks,
• the outer edge of the largest alula feather is white with pale tip, whereas Eurasian Treecreeper generally just shows a pale tip,
• the pale band in the primaries overlap evenly forming an even band whilst in Eurasian the band is uneven,
• the bill is longer, particularly in the male Short-toed,
• supercilium between the eye and bill is fainter whereas in Eurasian it is as prominent in front as it is behind the eye,
• other features such as the short hind claw, dark and unstreaked forehead and colour of the primary tips I have found less helpful.

On the walk back to the hotel there were around 50 Jackdaw close to the river and I returned the following morning for a closer look. Of about 150 birds 10% had pale collars and one or two of these were very obvious such as the bird below.

Western Jackdaw probably soemmerringii

Western Jackdaw with ring

One of the birds, with a slightly less marked collar, had a ring which I was able to read. I sent the details to Prague Museum and got an almost immediate reply to confirm that the bird had been ringed in Prague ~ 2km away just over 4 years ago. So it looks likely that both nominate monedula and soemmerringii are resident here.
On our final day, which was around -5ºC with intermittent snow, we walked through the old town again then followed Parizska road north, through the poshest part of town, crossing the river again but this time to Letna Park. Several Great Spotted and a Green Woodpecker were a good start, along with Nuthatch and Jay.

Green Woodpecker

Then calling Long-tailed Tits, all looking pale headed and a least one with the pure which head of nominate caudatus. The cream of a superb species, often referred to as Northern Long-tailed Tit as it resides in NE Europe. I presume the birds with some black behind the eye and on the ear coverts are all within the range of caudatus or are inter breeds with europaeus.

Northern Long-tailed Tit

There were many more Red Squirrel in Letna Park than we had seen in Petrin Park and they were rather more approachable, one was a sooty black melanic.

Red Squirrels with lower animal melanic

On the way back a pair of Egyptian Geese were calling loudly by the bridge, an addition to my Czech Republic list.
So, all in all a very enjoyable few days. Prague is a beautiful city with lots to see and many good eating places. I'm sure with a bit more time and the opportunity to get slightly further afield there would have been many more birds to see.