Sunday 19 October 2014

Polish breeder, 2AAR, is back at Antrim!

I found myself in the Antrim area with an hour to spare on Friday afternoon, so I did what any respectable gull ringer would do...I bought a white pan loaf and headed to the Marina to check for colour-ringed gulls!

There were plenty of people already there feeding the swans and ducks, so it'd didn't take much effort to start noticing colour-ringed birds, especially when they're as obliging as 2ABS who walked over to the car looking for some scraps.


Managing to read 13 rings in under 20 minutes, I was pleased to see 2AAR had returned. Regular followers of the blog might remember that this is the bird which, having spent winter 2012-13 at Antrim, was re-sighting on breeding grounds in Poland (see here). Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, so here are some photos of 2AAR which Gareth took last winter.

 
 

Notice how scraggly and worn he appears when first seen in October (top photo), then how well he looks in December (middle photo), before developing his dark-headed breeding plumage in March (bottom photo).

Although this is only the second autumn of our colour-ringing study, we're starting to see how similar the return rates of some of the birds are. Now, it may just be coincidence, or it might be down to observers just not seeing the birds, but here are a couple of examples:

Bird
Last record
2012-13
First record
2013-14
Last record
2013-14
First record
2014-15
2AAC
12 Mar
3 Aug
2 Mar
3 Aug
2AAD
12 Mar
3 Aug
2 Mar
10 Aug
2AAP
31 Mar
6 Sept
16 Mar
24 Aug
2AAR
12 Mar
20 Oct
9 Mar
17 Oct
2ABC
12 Mar
3 Aug
16 Mar
31 Aug
2ABS
31 Mar
3 Sept
23 Mar
7 Sept

The last and first records of each winter will be one aspect of their ecology which we will be keeping an eye on over coming years to see if a trend is emerging.

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