Juvenile Med Gulls on the Helford

Surprise surprise it's too windy for any mist-netting this week, so it's back to looking at colour-ringed gulls again...

Just for variety I ventured out to Men-aver beach on the southern side of the Helford River. The reef here is a great gathering point for Mediterranean Gulls from the area and as the tide pushes them up the beach it's possible to read a few rings. There have been good numbers of very fresh juveniles around recently, so I thought it'd be nice to try to find a ringed one amongst them to see where they're from so early in the season.

The reef at Men-aver beach

Tides were rather higher than expected (ex-hurricane effect perhaps?), so there were only 15 birds on the reef, but three of these were wearing smart green colour rings, indicating a French origin. Two of these were fresh juveniles as well, exactly as I wanted...

Green 570

Green RR83

Thanks to the ever-efficient Camille Duponcheel, I got the details for these birds back this morning. Both 570 and RR83 had been ringed on the same day (29th June) at the same site: Barbâtre, Polder de Sebastopol, Vendée. This is over 400km from Cornwall and interesting that these birds had moved north so soon after fledging.

Green R16X is a regular in the area, having been seen several times
at Men-aver beach and Coverack