From the Ridiculous to the Sublime!

After struggling all year to catch gulls, we hit the jackpot this week with around 2,000 large gulls caught at Chouet landfill. This was the result of our week long cannon netting with Paul Roper and members of the North Thames Gull Group. This is the fifth consecutive year that we have been able to run this joint operation with NTGG. Results will begin to flow from this work almost immediately, but it is likely to be more than two decades before the full value of this amazing week of scientific data collection is realised.

Guernsey Gulls are very fortunate that North Thames agreed to partner with it in this research. Over the last five years it has taken the work in Guernsey from local interest to a major international study on gulls.

While science is at the root of everything we do with this work, the week once again proved to be exciting and extremely good fun. It is incredible how such a large team of people from Guernsey and the UK are prepared to commit so much time and effort to making the event so successful and enjoyable.

Once again this work would not have been possible without the outstanding help and cooperation from the Public Services Department and especially all the landfill staff at Chouet, all of whom worked tirelessly to ensure that we caught so many gulls.

Below are a few photos from the event, which give a brief flavour of the week's work. All photos are by Cristina Sellares.

All photos (c) Cristina Sellares