Foreign gulls and legless gulls

The blog has been a bit quiet recently, but that's mainly due to a long overdue holiday in Turkey! But I came back to a bit of a flurry of gull reports, all of which were quite interesting...

The first two were a bit sad, as Herring Gull W:062 appears to have lost a leg! It was seen with both legs intact in amongst the thousand other gulls in Cadgwith Bay in January, so has obviously suffered a mishap since then. It was reported from Swanpool, having been ringed locally in Falmouth in 2014.

We also heard that W:197 from St Ives had been found with a broken wing and broken leg in St Ives, so had to be euthanased by a local vet. Better news came in the form of W:060, originally ringed on Falmouth High Street, which is now also on it's holidays, being seen in France. This is the first foreign sighting of one of our Herring Gulls, so was great news!

We've also only ever had one previous foreign sighting of one of our Great Black-backed Gulls, so receiving two in a week was a surprise. Our only other foreign sighting was L:BF8, ringed in Falmouth and seen in France in October 2014, and it apparently liked France as it was reported from a different site again at the start of May (delayed as reported by letter). Also heading south was L:BJ3, ringed on Mullion Island in 2014 and seen at Lizard Point twice in August 2014. It was seen on Chouet Landfill, Guernsey on 13th July and it's about time one of our birds made it to the Channel Islands.

Apart from this, since the last blog update we've been doing some ringing, so below are a few highlights in the form of pretty pics!

It was another year of low productivity for our Great Black-backed Gulls on Mullion Island, with just nine chicks making it to an old enough age to colour-ringed

Our Kittiwakes have been doing slightly better, with 25 chicks and 15 adults now ringed at Trewavas Head

It's not been such a good year for resightings of French-ringed birds though, with just five birds seen. This bird was ringed at Ponte du Raz, France in 2002 and has been seen at Trewavas Head in 2012 and 2015.

This is also a French bird, ringed as a chick in 2007 and seen for the first time at Trewavas Head this year. Caught inadvertently, we noticed that the colour rings (in particular yellow) were starting to fade so we replaced them with one of our numbered rings.

Away from seabirds, we are also continuing to ring rehabilitated owls at the Screech Owl Sanctuary, these being some of the eight young Tawny Owls ringed recently.

Guernsey tip gulls

It's that time of year again when a few members of the ringing group head over to Guernsey to help out with the cannon-netting and colour-ringing of gulls on the tip there. This is probably the final year of tip trips, which have been run by Paul Veron and North Thames Gull Group. For more info on the project, check out the video from a couple of years ago:

 

Over the week we've caught just over 1,400 gulls, most of which were Herring Gulls, but also good numbers of Lesser Black-backed Gulls and a few other odds and sods. So below are just a few pics from the trip, perhaps useful for people to get to grips with ageing these birds.

 

A variety of ages of Herring Gull awaiting extraction

The Guernsey gull team for 2015

Herring Gull

 

First-summer bird (age code 5): no grey on the mantle and uniformly dark secondaries

Second-summer bird (age code 7): grey on the mantle and some mottling on the secondaries

Third-summer bird (age code 9): grey coming through on the wing coverts and adult-type primaries moulting in

Fourth-summer bird or older (age code 8i): mostly adult-type primaries and secondaries, with some remnants of immature plumage

Lesser Black-backed Gull 

 

First-summer bird (age code 5)

First-summer bird (right) and second-summer bird (left)

Second-summer bird (age code 7)

Third-summer bird (age code 9)

 

Yellow-legged Gull

 

We were lucky enough to also catch a Yellow-legged Gull; only the third we've caught on the tip. This second-summer bird can be identified by the darker grey mantle, more orange orbital ring (around the eye), a very deep long bill and a much more delineated white rump.

 

 

Cannon-netting Guernsey gulls

This week a small contingent for WCRG have been over in Guernsey helping out Guernsey Gulls and North Thames Gull Group cannon-netting on the island's one and only landfill site.

Over the week we squeezed in 12 fires, catching just over 1,200 big gulls, colour-ringing 316 Lesser Black-backed and 730 Herring Gulls. Add to that a fair few Great Black-backs and a very smart Yellow-legged Gull and it's been a good week.

After catching, gulls are kept in a large keeping cage (a modified cage trap really), which ensures they stay cool and relaxed, using a small catching box to deal with a few birds at a time.

Running repairs on the keeping cage Cornwall-stylee

All birds ringed during the week were also colour-ringed as part of a long-term project monitoring productivity at breeding colonies on the island. Several birds were also caught which needed a colour ring replacing, having effectively worn out their original ring.

The good side of 6FF9

The not-so-good side of 6FF9

The tip is also often a rather interesting place to work, sharing it with some unexpected characters.