What an
incredible month June turned
out to be! Activities switched from gull colour ring observations to
making the
maximum effort to progress my own gull projects by trying to colour
ring a good
sample of gulls from all three species breeding in the Bailiwick of
Guernsey –
Great Black-backed Gull, Herring Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull.
After months
of careful planning and
preparation, Paul Roper from the North Thames Gull Group brought a
small core
of ringers experienced in cannon netting gulls across to Guernsey, to
join up
with Guernsey ringers and helpers in a three-day session of cannon
netting run
at the Island’s only landfill site – Chouet landfill.
This
initiative was spectacularly successful, with a total of seven
catches being taken over the
three days – resulting in a massive total of 744 large gulls
being caught. This
level of catch took me so much by surprise that I ran out of colour
rings for
Herring Gulls and so 230 gulls were released only with metal rings!
My gull
studies originally commenced
with work on Lesser Black-backed Gull, and so I was particularly
thrilled that
we caught, ringed and released 90 gulls of this species.
My sincere
thanks to Paul and the rest
of his team from North Thames, and to the Guernsey team, and also
to the
States of Guernsey Public Services Department and States Works for
granting
permission to operate within the site, and especially to the landfill
site
management and staff who were extremely helpful throughout the three
days.
A summary of the catches is as follows: -
|
Species |
Catch 1 4th
June 09 |
Catch 2 5th June 09 |
Catch 3 5th
June 09 |
Catch 4 5th
June 09 |
Catch 5 6th
June 09 |
Catch 6 6th
June 09 |
Catch 7 6th
June 09 |
Totals |
|
GBB |
3 |
4 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
12 |
|
LBB |
35 |
7 |
7 |
3 |
3 |
5 |
30 |
90 |
|
Herring |
75 |
189 |
95 |
34 |
124 |
70 |
55 |
642 |
|
|
113 |
200 |
104 |
38 |
127 |
77 |
85 |
744 |
A more detailed report on the three days operations can be found on the excellent web site of the North Thames Gull Group by clicking here
One of the Herring Gulls caught during the cannon netting was carrying a French ring - Paris DA 227144. This is almost certainly the bird seen on 7th May (and reported in last last month's news), for all digits tied up with those seen earlier when I had only been able to see a part of the ring. The ring was worn and thin so we re-ringed it (Jersey E 15721) and also fitted a colour ring (5.FF0). I have subsequently seen this bird at Chouet landfill Beach on 1st July.
Reports from the colour ringed Herring Gulls are already beginning to be received from members of the public and other local birders. Each observation helps to build the valuable database for the Guernsey Gull studies.
The rest of
the month saw a further
343 gulls ringed (mostly with colour rings), as the Guernsey Seabird
Team
(Catherine, Paul and Sophie Veron, Jamie Hooper and Chris Mourant)
visited many
of the colonies on Guernsey, Jethou, Herm, Sark and Alderney both to
monitor
the 2009 seabird breeding season and also to ring a good sample of
chicks of
several species (primarily Northern Gannet, European Shag, Great
Cormorant and
the three gull species). Brief accounts and photographs from these
visits can be read on other
sections of this web site. Click on the following link Guernsey
Seabirds 2009.
Gull totals ringed were: - Great Black-backed Gull (50 pulli), Herring Gull (175 pulli and 24 adults) and Lesser Black-backed Gull (22 pulli and 69 adults).
With so much time devoted to seabird monitoring and gull ringing, there was virtually no time left to take my telescope out looking for colour rings. The highlights of the few records taken were the Herring Gulls which were seen at their nests on Jethou (5.AA6 - originally ringed at Chouet Landfill on 6th June 2009) and Lihou (1.MM6 – originally ringed in our garden at Ty Coed, Vale on 10th May 2009).
Finally..it was very exciting to receive an e-mail from John Sanders in Gloucester, England informing us that he had spotted one of the 1st summer Lesser Black-backed Gulls that we had ringed the previous month in our garden here on Guernsey. This bird (2.BB2) was ringed on 25 May 2009 in Guernsey, and seen at Gloucester landfill on 24th and 26th June. The photographs below show it in Guernsey and in Gloucester.
(2.BB2 at Ty Coed, Vale, Guernsey photo © Catherine Veron) (2.BB2 at Gloucester Landfill, England photo © John Sanders)