Another Wonderful Early Morning on the North Coast

With another 200+ gull colour ring reads yesterday morning, it was yet another wonderful ring reading session. Every day there seem to be more juvenile gulls on the beaches, and amongst the more numerous Herring Gulls I'm always delighted to find some of my juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gulls. Yesterday there was a new youngster from Sark, and one of only two LBBG chicks ringed on Lihou this summer - Black 0CS1.

LBBG Black 0CS1 as a chick on Lihou (c) PKV

GBBG Yellow 9AA6 as chick (c) PKV

GBBG Yellow 1.TT9 as a chick (c) PKV

Gulls at Chouet Landfill Beach (c) PKV



71 - A New Record for Mediterranean Gulls in Guernsey!

Only a few years ago if anyone had told me we could see more than 70 Mediterranean Gulls on one beach in Guernsey, I would have laughed - not possible! Well...that's exactly what I saw on Bellegreve Bay yesterday on the way home form work. The flock was growing all the time as new birds flew in...so no doubt it ended up larger than my count! Amongst the 71 birds counted were a staggering 60 juveniles, including two more birds ringed in France (Green RT03 and RE37.) Amongst the 11 full-grown birds was the well-known Belgian bird White E898.

Mediterranean Gull White E898 at BGB (C) PKV



A 300 Gull Colour Ring Reading Session

Reading 300 gull colour rings in a session is now not too difficult, given the scale of our gull projects in recent years. However, it is still very satisfying to accumulate so much valuable data on outings at this time of year. As well as many records of our adult LBBGs feeding up before they begin their southward migrations, there are adult Herring Gulls which are now approaching the end of their arduous breeding seasons, and many more GBBGs seem to return to the landfill and northern beaches at this time of year. In good years, like 2014, the numbers are swollen by the juvenile birds leaving the colonies and joining the crèches on the beaches. Ring reading at this time in such a year has a really wonderful end of summer feel to it all – I love it!

Gulls on Northern Beach (c) PKV

A Last Visit to the Lihou Gull Colonies

A very quick trip across the Lihou Causeway during the narrow tidal window on Friday afternoon gave me one last chance to review the success of the gull colonies this year. It was a very pleasant visit, with 13 fledged cr Herring Gulls and two fledged cr GBBGs observed amongst the 42 cr gulls observes (33 Herring, six LBBG and three GBBG). There were plenty of un-ringed juvenile gulls too! On the next tides we'll take the ropes down, as all the gulls observed are now flying strongly.

Some of the gull colonies on Lihou - with ever-begging chicks! (c) PKV



The Benefits of a Rising Tide

...are they bring the gulls closer and closer! Another very enjoyable early morning session at the northern beaches resulted in c 200 cr readings again. GBBGs continue to increase in number, with 27 crs today (including five French and one English bird). There are now lots band lots of juvenile Herring Gulls on the beaches - perhaps 250+ this morning (of which 21 were locally colour ringed).

 Gulls at Chouet Landfill Beach

 GBBGY Yellow 0.TT6 as chick on Lihou, Guernsey

 GBBG Green K.72 from Chausey Islands, Manche, France

 Gulls at Chouet Landfill Beach

Mediterranean Gulls at Bellegreve Bay (all photos (C) PKV)



617 - The Gull Chick Colour Ringing Tally for 2014

As this year’s gull chicks begin to fledge, I thought I’d post a summary of the numbers of chicks colour ringed in the Bailiwick. The highlight has been 353 Lesser Black-backed Gulls fitted with black colour rings – a record for us. This resulted from reasonable productivity this year from the much troubled main colony (c 1,000 pairs +) on Burhou, Alderney, and also a good season on some of the much smaller colonies on Sark.

Our performance with Great Black-backed Gulls was rather modest with only 54 chicks colour ringed, but we did better with Herring Gulls with 210 chicks colour ringed. Herring Gulls in particular had a very productive season, and this total represents only a sample of the chicks in the colonies this year.

So…with 617 gull chicks colour ringed this summer, it proved to be a very satisfactory season. Now I can look forward to finding many of these juvenile gulls once they’ve left the nesting colonies.

LBBG Black 2CP1

GBBG Yellow 8AA8

 

Herring Gull White 5JU9