Guernsey Gulls Every Day in Portugal!

Guernsey colour-ringed Lesser Black-backed Gulls were seen on every day of my recent trip to the Algarve, Portugal! In total I made 33 observations of 21 different Guernsey birds - making the trip extremely successful. Based for nine days at Ferragudo, near Portimao in the Algarve, I managed to record gulls each morning and late afternoon mainly at three sites - Portimao Fish Port, Porto do Lagos Landfill and Quarteira Beach.
191 observations of 142 different colour-ringed LBBGs were made with birds from Scotland (four), England (24), Wales (six), Guernsey (21), Iceland (one), Germany (seven), Norway (11), Denmark (five), The Netherlands (33), Belgium (16), France (eight), Spain (two) and Portugal (four).
19 different Yellow-legged Gulls were also recorded as follows:- Algeria (one), Spain (five) and Portugal (13). Two Audouin's Gulls were from Corsica and Spain, while the nine White Storks recorded were from Portugal (seven), France (one) and Germany(one). The origins of a Greater Flamingo and Pied Avocet have yet to be traced.
The weather was absolutely superb - wall to wall sunshine and very warm - it was the summer we never got in Guernsey this year! . It was very nice to meet up with local ornithologist Carlos Pacheco (who regularly finds Guernsey Gulls in Portugal) and also Michael Davis (who reported some of my very first LBBGs from Quarteira...and has done so every year since 2009!). All in all a most relaxing and highly successful trip.

 Portimao Fishing Port

 Porto do Lagos Landfill

 Quarteira Fishing Port

 Gulls on Quarteira Beach

 Carlos Pacheco and PKV - Ferragudo

LBBGs from all over Western Europe!

German Spoonbills, Norwegian and French GBBGs and Belgian LBBG

A couple of Eurasian Spoonbills have been in Guernsey for the past few days. Thanks to the excellent photos by Tony Loaring we now have details of both birds. The one with the colour rings was ringed as a nestling on the German Wadden Sea island of Mellum on 30 May 2012. It then moved 25 km to Eckwardersiel near Wilhelmshaven on the mainland on 11 August where it was seen with the black-ringed individual on 24 August. The black-ringed bird was ringed there as a nestling, also on 30 May 2012, by the same ringers! There have been no further records of them since 24 August until they both turned up in Guernsey on 7 October 2012. 

Spoonbills at Fort Le Crocq 07 October 2012 (c) Tony Loaring

The Guernsey Gulls Blog has been quiet for nearly two weeks because I have been in southern Portugal in search of colour-ringed Lesser Black-backed Gulls - especially those ringed in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. I will make some separate postings regarding the success of this trip.

Today I made my first run down Guernsey's west coast to see what has happened to the LBBG and GBBG flocks along the coast. I was surprised to find c 300 LBBGs - including 11 of our locally colour-ringed birds. At least one third of the gulls could not be checked. Amongst the flock on Vazon Beach was a 2nd year Blue TZ.AY - ringed in Belgium. 

GBBGs were not numerous - perhaps 120 birds, but the flock included my first Norwegian-ringed bird of the autumn - Black JA612 (ringed as a chick in Vest-Agder in 2008, and seen in several previous autumns in Guernsey!). There were also three French-ringed GBBGs (two Chausey and one from Le Havre).

Little Change in West Coast LBBG Flock, but GBBGs Continue to Arrive in Small Numbers

90 minutes in Chouet landfill on Saturday morning resulted in c 150 local Herring Gull colour ring reads, along with two juvenile LBBGs from Alderney and a few GBBGs. Trips down the west coast on Saturday and Sunday showed little change in the LBBG flock (still c 350 birds), and only a small number of GBBGs are present (in relatively calm weather). However, amongst the GBBGs were several new returning cr birds from Chausey, France and also a new arrival of a chick ringed at Portland Harbour this summer (White P:42A).

There were two Yellow-legged Gulls at Chouet Landfill on Saturday (one adult and one third winter) and one adult on L'Eree Beach on Sunday.

Yellow-legged Gull Chouet landfill 29 September 2012

Yellow-legged Gulls Becoming Regular

Not long ago Yellow-legged Gulls were very scarce in Guernsey, with a handful of records each year. I can't help noticing now that I am recording one or more birds virtually every time I go down the coast. Why should this be? I think the answer is two-fold. There can't be any doubt that Yellow-legged Gulls are appearing more regularly in Guernsey. I haven't counted up...but I must have in excess of 50 bird-days this year now. Of course the other reason is probably because we are becoming better at identifying them amongst gull flocks. We are now picking out Yellow-legged Gulls of most ages...however...as I've commented before on this blog there is a glaring absence of juvenile/1st winter birds. This is most unlikely to be the real position, as one would expect dispersing and migrating 1st year birds to be perhaps the commonest age group to be seen in the islands. This leads me to the unfortunate conclusion that I am struggling badly to notice them amongst the numerous juvenile Herring Gulls... identifying them will have to be next year's gull resolution!

A run down the coast this morning produced three Yellow-legged Gulls (one adult and two 3rd calendar year birds), but little else of note.

A few photos of Yellow-legged Gulls in Guernsey

Less wind = less gulls

It is amazing at how a relatively small drop in the wind speed (from Force 6-7 to Force 4-5) appears to have taken a lot of gulls back out to sea. There were still c 150 Great Black-backed Gulls along the west coast this morning, but this is less than half the birds seen while the wind was blowing harder. The same was also true this morning with Lesser Black-backed Gulls. The highlights of the session were nine cr Great Black-backed Gulls (four French, four Guernsey and one Jersey), and a 3rd calendar year Yellow-legged Gull.

 

3rd calendar year Yellow-legged Gull - Vazon Beach