A Pleasant Hour at the Beach

It was very good to be back at the beach this morning to read about 100 gull colour rings in an hour. Most were LBBGs loafing on Chouet Landfill Beach, after feeding at the landfill and then bathing in the sea. There were also well known English and French GBBGs present.

A Great Day's Gulling!

Catherine, Phil Alexander and I enjoyed a superb day ringing gull chicks on Jethou yesterday. Productivity amongst the Great Black-backed Gulls (26 chicks ringed) and Herring Gulls (81 chicks ringed) was the best I’ve seen for many years. It was also a well-timed visit with most of the chicks being the ideal age for ringing. With so much effort going into the gull ringing, we only ringed a few Shags. Once again I found it difficult to assess the breeding season for Shag, as our visit was really too late for this species. There were still some youngsters in nests, but many nests were empty (showing signs of successful use), but there were few fledged Shags around the island (but lots of adults in gatherings on the rocks with very few first year birds amongst them). Puffin numbers looked strong with rafts of 14  birds off the south-west and 13 off the traditional Puffin gulley on the north coast. Our thanks to Dr Ogden again for his interest and support in our seabird monitoring work.

LBBG Chick Back from Morocco

A very quick 20 minutes watch at Chouet landfill Beach this morning gave a reasonable collection of colour ring reads from LBBGs and Herring Gulls. Pride of place went to LBBG Black 6.A7 a bird ringed as a chick on Burhou in July 2010, and which was seen at Kenitra, MOROCCO over 1,750 km away in January 2011. Although I've recorded a number of LBBGs back in Guernsey, following sightings in Morocco, this is the first GuernseyGulls colour-ringed chick to be seen in Africa, which has now been recorded back home!

Movements of LBBG Black 6.A7 

LBBG Black 0AVO at CLB (c) PKV

First Gull Chicks of the Season Ringed

Yesterday, my son Merlin and I went over to Sark to monitor the breeding gulls.The weather picked up quickly from early morning mist to a wonderful sunny day with a gentle breeze - perfect for landing at several of the small gull colonies scattered around the island's cliff coastline. The overall number of breeding gulls for all three species seemed a little down again (subjective not objective assessment), but productivity of the Herring Gulls looked reasonable..although the season is perhaps seven to ten days later than "average". We ringed 26 Herring Gull and two Great Black-backed Gulls in what was a thoroughly enjoyable day's work. Our thanks once again to Andy Cook for his expert seamanship to enable us to obtain this data.

The Garden Comes Good

This morning Chris, Phil and I took a small gull catch in the garden, which comprised 11 Lesser Black-backed Gulls (inc three re-traps) and five Herring Gulls (inc three re-traps). This is the highest ratio of LBBG:HG ever achieved in the garden!