A couple of Belgian beauties!

With Easter last weekend, most people have had Belgian chocolate on their minds recently. Here at BHGNI we've had Belgian gulls on ours...and Belgian chocolate, of course!

The first bird was sighted in Bellymena by Gareth and although it wasn't fitted with a colour-ring, great work by Gareth resulted in him managing to piece together the number on the metal ring.

Photo by Gareth Platt

He reported his sighting to the Belgian Bird Ringing Centre and received a re-sighting report through the post which told him that this bird had been ringed as a chick at Antwerp in June 2013.

The second bird was much easier to identify as it had been fitted with a colour-ring. Yellow EPRP was seen by Graham McElwaine at Ballytrasna in Co. Louth. Although this bird isn't in NI (if only it had been seen a couple of hundred yards to the north!), I thought it was interesting that two Belgian ringed birds should turn up in quick succession, so I've included it here.

A reply to an email I sent to Tim Audenaert confirmed that this bird had been ringed as a chick near Lokeren, Belgium in May 2014. This is the first re-sighting since ringing.

Remember if you record a colour-ringed gull in NI, please pass them on and we will help get the life history of the bird for you.

Red - Antwerp, ringing location of metal ringed BHG
Yellow - Ringing location of EPRP
Blue - Ballymena, metal ringed bird re-sighting location
Green - Ballytrasna, Louth, re-sighting location of EPRP

Many thanks to Gareth and Graham for reporting their sightings and passing on the feedback.