More Lesser Black-backed Gulls return Home!

A visit to Chouet landfill before work yesterday proved fruitless as thick early morning mist hid the gulls from view! This morning it was far better, although with a lot of human activity at the landfill the gulls did not settle. Nevertheless another 124 locally colour ringed Herring Gulls were recorded. Pride of place, however, went to the three new returning colour ringed Lesser Black-backed Gulls – which included White 3.T8 – the earliest bird to have returned in 2010 (on 15 January) and Black 2.P4 which had been recorded at Matosinhos, Portugal from 27/09/10 to 08/10/10!
Interestingly…although White 3.T8 was not the first of my cr LBBGs to return in 2011 – it is again the very first of my adults colour ringed in 2009 to return to the island! The other six colour ringed LBBGs back so far were all ringed as adults in the summer of 2010 (so would not have been identifiable to me when I recorded the returning adults last year).

LBBG White 3.T8 Chouet March 2010 - PKV