Madrid Gulls

On most weekends throughout the winter the very hard working members of the Madrid Gull Team send me a series of observations of “Guernsey”-ringed Lesser Black-backed Gulls from the landfills around Spain’s capital city of Madrid. Last weekend some 30 reports of Guernsey LBBGs were received from the Madrid landfills of Colmenar Viejo and Pinto. A 3^rd landfill further to the south (Alcazar de San Juan) is also well watched with frequent reports of our gulls there too. It is fascinating to see how faithful many of the gulls are to these sites from one winter to the next. Many of our gulls which have travelled down the west coast of Iberia in the autumn find their way along the southern coasts of Portugal and Spain by mid-winter, before turning north to spend some time at the Madrid Landfills before making their more direct northward return migrations in spring. Javier Marchamalo kindly sent the photos below of some of the gulls at Pinto last weekend.
The web site of the Madrid Gull Team is regularly updated at http://madrid-gull-team.blogspot.com/

LBBGs at Pinto landfill, Madrid 25 January 2013 - all photos (c) Javier Marchamalo