Another gull coincidence

Following the bizarre gull coincidence we blogged about before (here), they just keep coming! On the weekend I needed to go out to St Ives to replace a battery on one of the relay stations (that bounce the downloaded logger data to our base station) and also to retrieve one of the loggers from the Co-op roof that had either fallen off or been removed by one of the gulls... We knew the bird was alive and well as it had been seen on Hayle estuary by ring-reader extraordinaire Steve Lister (holidaying Leicestershire county recorder), but the tag was still just transmitting from the rooftop!

One of the two relay stations in St Ives

The retrieved logger, unfortunately now minus aerial

Whilst I was there it would be rude to not have a look on the beach for some of our birds... As ever, W:186 was still mugging children on the beach by Rod's Deckchairs (now accompanied by two begging juveniles) and on the beach by the ice cream parlour was W:194.

W:194 on the beach at St Ives, 20m from where it was ringed!

Once these jobs were done I decided to drop in to Hayle estuary to have a quick look through the gulls there. Not only did I bump into Steve Lister (and show him the logger dropped by the bird he'd seen earlier in the week), but also spotted a couple of our St Ives birds. Nothing really special there, until I realised that one of them was W:194 which must have followed me down from St Ives! I worked out I'd been watching it on the beach in St Ives just after 3pm and then watching it on the estuary at Hayle at 3:50pm. OK, so it's only a matter 4km from St Ives to Hayle as the gull flies, but I was impressed by the coincidence!

W:194 45 at Hayle, less than an hour after I'd been watching it in St Ives