Some Gulls from the Weekend

I finally had a chance to load up some of the gull photos taken by Dave Murray at St Peter Port Harbour and Chouet on Saturday. Here's a nice selection.

A Very Enjoyable Gull Session in the Garden

Chris Mourant, Phil Alexander, Carolyn Brouard and Dave Murray participated in a most enjoyable gull ringing session in the garden at Ty Coed this morning. Instead of taking any huge catches we took three small-medium catches, resulting in c 50 gulls being caught and ringed - c 46 Herring and four Lesser Black-backed Gulls. We also caught a re-trap LBBG from 2011, and several re-trap Herring Gulls from 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Herring Gull Reported in Spain

Antonio Gutierrez has seen Herring Gull White 1.XX6 at Meiras Beach, Valdovino, A Coruna, Spain today! Although relatively unusual, we do know that a minority of Guernsey Herring Gulls do migrate as far as Northern Spain in the autumn/winter. This record is of course more unusual because this adult female should be back in Guernsey for the breeding season. For whatever reason this gull is clearly not breeding in 2012. It was originally ringed in our garden (Ty Coed) in May 2009, and has been seen once before in Spain at the mouth of the Castro River, Lires  in A Coruna in December 2010 by Xabi Varela. It was back in Guernsey though by late January 2011.

Herring Gull White 1.XX6 Lires, A Coruna December 2010 - (c) X Varela

Close Encounters of the Gull Kind

With gull read ring aficionado Dave Murray over from Cheshire, England, we went up to Chouet Landfill early this morning. It was one of those stunning days when we were able to get very close indeed to the gulls, and as a result we obtained well over 200 gull colour ring reads (many from the gulls we ringed during the cannon netting session the week before last). We also obtained some rather nice photos of the spectacle of the gulls feeding on refuse. Dave has already sent me some wonderful photos, which I shall try to put on the blog over the next few days (time permitting!).

A Stunningly Successful Week at Chouet

Paul Roper and several members of the North Thames Gull Group have just completed a week working with the Guernsey Gulls Team to catch and ring full-grown gulls at Chouet landfill. With fantastic co-operation from the landfill staff, we managed to catch c 1,100 gulls, of which 1,000 were new (the other 100 being re-traps or controls of ringed birds). Highlights were the large number of Lesser Black-backed Gulls caught - c 500 - all of which were colour ringed, as well as a sample of the 500 or so Herring Gulls. Amongst the LBBGs were a Portuguese metal-ringed gull and two British -ringed LBBGs (one of which Blue ACE is well-known in Guernsey), while the other was an immature gull ringed by Peter Rock in SW England. We also caught and colour-ringed an adult Yellow-legged Gull (White 1FC1). This is such a tremendous contribution to our gull studies here in Guernsey! More details will follow, but below are some photos.

A Nice Weekend with Gulls

I spent an enjoyable 90 minutes recording gull colour rings at Chouet on Saturday morning, when the highlights were a few of my returning immature Lesser Black-backed Gulls, which had been ringed in 2009 or 2010 on Burhou, Alderney. One of these birds Black 0.P9 was known to have wintered that year in the Algarve, Portugal ( in fact i saw it  myself while on holiday at Quarteira in December 2009!).

On Sunday, Chris, Phil, Carolyn and I managed a couple of small gull catches to colour ring another 30 gulls, which included three more Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

A Few Gulls to Ring

A modest gull catch in the garden today resulted in 14 Herring and two Lesser Black-backed Gulls being colour-ringed - one of the Herring Gulls being a bird that was metal ringed as a chick in one of the Sark colonies in the summer of 2006. I wonder if it is breeding this year back on its natal rock?

Is this Herring Gull Breeding in Cherbourg Town?

Having visited the adjacent French coast last weekend, I was very interested to see Herring Gulls commonly nesting on the rooftops of buildings in Granville Town. It is unusual (and perhaps unexpected) that this "urban" habit has not really caught on yet (!) in Guernsey. However, I do wonder whether Herring Gull White 1.AN4 (which was ringed at Chouet Landfill in June 2010) is nesting in the town of Cherbourg. Sophie Rivrins sent me this rather nice photo of the gull standing on her balcony in Cherbourg on 28 April 2012.

Herring Gull White 1.AN4 Cherbourg, France 28 April 2012 - Sophie Rivrins