Wonderful weekend at Chouet

This is just about peak spring arrival time for LBBGs in Guernsey, and it showed at Chouet this weekend. A couple of hours in the landfill produced stunning views of the gulls at very close range - and with c60 colour ring reads taken on each of two days there was plenty of action to enjoy. Many of the birds are freshly arrived back from wintering grounds in Iberia or northern France. The Iceland Gull was apparently seen again on Friday morning. At least five French ringed Great Black-backed Gulls were also present at the landfill.

First Guernsey Great Black-backed Gull Reported from Spain!

My thanks to Antonio Gutierrez and Ricardo Rodriguez for some superb detective work in working out the code on a colour ringed GBBG in Spain. Very careful examination of photos confirmed the bird seen just over the French border at Plaiaundi, Irún, Gipuzkoa, Spain on Saturday 03 March 2012. Yellow 0.FF8 is the very first GBBG ringed in the Channel Islands to be reported from Spain. Until this record the furthest SW of any of our birds had been reported was Vendée, France. Yellow 0.FF8 was ringed as a chick on 22 June 2010 on Crevichon, Jethou. It was seen three times in Guernsey in August 2010, but then not again until its sighting in Spain.

 GBBG Yellow 0.FF8 Gipuzkoa, Spain 03 March 2010

Crevichon, Jethou

A Wonderful Saturday morning at Chouet

In a fabulous couple of hours at Chouet on Saturday I recorded 80 of my returning colour ringed Lesser Black-backed Gull, as well as one of Roland-Jan Buij's birds ringed in The Netherlands. Of course many of the 80 birds had been seen in Iberia over the winter, but Black 3AC0 was last seen by Antonio Gutierrez at Carino Beach, A Coruna, NW Spain only six days earlier!

Incredibly two of the nine cr Great Black-backed Gulls were birds colour ringed in Vest-Agder, southern Norway! Amongst all this activity it was hard to do justice to my Herring Gulls, but I did add another 62 sightings to my database.  All in all a really exciting couple of hours at Chouet!

 LBBG Black 3AC0 back in six days or less from NW Spain!

 

 LBBG Red TV from The Netherlands

GBBG Black JH350 from southern Norway

27 cr LBBGs at Chouet this morning

A steady return migration is now in full swing for our breeding LBBGs. Today, in an hour before work, I recorded 27 of my cr birds - including several that have been reported over the autumn/winter in England, France, Portugal and Spain.

 Gulls at Chouet landfill Beach

LBBG Black 8F7

30 cr LBBGs before work!

The LBBG arrivals are continuing, as expected. An hour at Chouet this morning gave 30 colour ringed LBBGs - the majority recorded for the first time this spring!

 

 

 

 

 

The Flood Gates are Opening

An hour at Chouet this morning gave plenty of evidence of the continuing arrival back in the islands of Lesser Black-backed Gulls which have been absent all winter. The tide was not ideal, but I managed to record 17 of my colour ringed LBBGs, along with c 50 colour ringed Herring Gulls. I would expect the strong arrivals of LBBGs to continue now for several weeks.  

Chouet Landfill in the Mist!

Making the short drive to Chouet Landfill early on Saturday, I thought a lazy start to the day with a cup of tea in bed may have been the wiser option...as the mist was so thick it was difficult to see more than a few metres ahead. However...what a good move it turned out to be! Once inside the landfill I was able to get close enough to the hoards of gulls to make ring reading very easy. Today was the first day when Lesser Black-backed Gulls were common at the landfill, with c 150 birds in the first two hours - including 21 of my cr birds - many recorded for the first time after wintering in Iberia! It is always such a thrill to welcome the birds home for another season! In addition I recorded c 100 of my locally colour ringed Herring Gulls. The 1st winter Iceland Gull had been present on Friday, but there was no sign of it today. One Yellow-legged Gull was the only scarce gull present at the landfill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Guernsey Gulls in NW Africa

In what has turned out to be a golden period for LBBG sightings, I've just received news of 14 sightings, involving seven birds, from the Norwegian Gull Group, who visited Morocco and Western Sahara for a week of intensive gull colour ring reading in the early February. Interestingly all the gulls were ringed as adults (at Chouet Landfill, Ty Coed, Vale Marais, Guernsey and on Burhou, Alderney), and three of them were observed in the same wintering area in NW Africa as in the previous winter - in fact I had even seen two of these gulls myself at Anza, Agadir, Morocco in December 2010. Last summer these gulls were observed back in the Channel Islands! My thanks to the Norwegian Team for all their hard work!

 

Anza, Morocco

11th International Gull Meeting in Croatia

From 16-19 February 2012 Catherine and I attended the 11^th International Gull Meeting in Zagreb, Croatia. A few days ago I posted an article about the fieldwork sessions from the Conference where we observed a range of gulls at Zagreb Landfill on the Saturday, and then colour ringed some the following day. However, the Conference also had a very varied and informative series of presentations from a number of gull enthusiasts from around Europe. These talks covered areas as diverse as ecology and migration to identification of some very difficult races. Naturally I took the opportunity to make a presentation on the gull projects being run in the Bailiwick of Guernsey.

Our sincere thanks to the Association of Biological Research (BIOM), Croatia, and to Luka Jurinovic and his small team of colleagues who hosted such an enjoyable and successful Conference!

A full list if presentations was as follows:-

Cyril Mahaim Saunders’s Gull and Relict Gull, two specialized and threatened species
Chris Gibbins Is it possible to identify heinei Common Gulls in the field?
Risto Juvaste Sexing of gull chicks by measurements
Risto Juvaste Exciting (but yet secret) results from 127 GPS-transmitter LBBG-migration project
Peter Rock Urban gulls
Paul Roper North Thames Gull Group
Paul Veron Guernsey Gulls – An outline of the research projects being run on the three Larid species breeding in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, English Channel
Zsolt Karcza & Peter Szinai Gull colour ringing in Hungary 1994-2011
Nick Rossiter Yellow-legged Gull: Differences between Atlantic and Mediterranean populations
Ruud Altenburg Extent of post-juvenile moult in first winter michahellis
Mars Muusse ID of second calendar year Larus heuglini
Morten Helberg Were do Norwegian gulls migrate? Results from read ringing data from southern Norway 1995-present
Luka Jurinović Gulls in Croatia: species, statuses and numbers
Jelena Kralj Movements of eastern Adriatic Yellow-legged Gulls – 12 years of colour-ringing
Vladimir Savić Influenza viruses in gulls
Viola Ross-Smith Gull migration: calibrating colour ringing data with GPS telemetry
Aonghais Cook Analysis of colour-ringing data: Maximising the impact of your efforts

 

 

 

 

For Luka's view of the weekend visit his excellent blog Ringing in Croatia  http://cro-ringing.blogspot.com/