Monday, 31 December 2012

A festive surprise, my first foreign control


Kevin and I headed up to our site again on Friday morning in the hope that we might catch a few more gulls to colour-ring.

As always when I first arrive, I had a quick scan of the gull flock to check for colour-rings and immediately saw T35J, the Polish ringed bird, originally from Lithuania (see here) as well as 2AAL, 2AAN and 2AAR.

T35J - a well travelled individual

We managed to catch and ring four new birds which were fitted with colour-rings 2AAV, 2AAX, 2ABA and 2ABB. 


2ABB in our "ringing lab" - seat covers are advised!

As well as the three re-sightings above, we also recorded 2AAT, 2AAP, 2AAD, 2AAA, 2AAK and 2AAS, so it was a successful enough morning.

The morning got even better when, just as we were about to leave, I managed to catch T35J and this gave us an opportunity to confirm the metal ring number and is my first foreign control.

4 comments:

  1. Valley Naturalist31 December 2012 at 13:13

    Loving the blog. I've been paying more attention to the gulls on my local patch some of which carry colour rings. The biggest fustration however is getting information back from BTO and other ringing schemes- in some cases i've had nothing at all. I'm still awaiting a response from August of a colour ringed BHG, if you have any ideas it would be much appreciated. See photos on entries dated 25th August and 2nd September on my blog www.valleynaturalist.blogspot.com
    Thanks Steve

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  2. Adam McClure1 January 2013 at 12:39

    Hi Steve,

    thanks very much for your feedback. I'm glad people are enjoying reading about our antics and goings-on with the project. It's still very early days, but at least we've made a start.

    I've never had any problems hearing back about any birds I've reported, it does sometimes take a while, but I'm sure there are some which are missed and slip through the net.

    The bird you saw on 25 August (my birthday!), white 29A1, I think is part of a scheme in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, see here: http://www.cr-birding.org/node/585 and the person to contact is john.wells2@btinternet.com

    Drop him an email, I'm sure he'd be happy to hear from you, especially as you managed to get such good photos of the ring. It says he responds, so hopefully you should get some feedback.

    You certainly see quite a few colour-ringed birds, slightly jealous!

    Cheers, Adam

    ReplyDelete
  3. Adam McClure1 January 2013 at 12:39

    P.S. I've added a link to your blog on here and thanks for adding mine to yours!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Valley Naturalist1 January 2013 at 16:21

    Thanks Adam, thats great!

    Steve

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