First visit of 2014 to Blue Circle Island, Larne Lough

Yesterday afternoon I accompanied RSPB staff as they visited their reserve in Larne Lough, and one of our study colonies, on Blue Circle Island.

As Matthew, Laura and Anne went about their work to monitor the breeding terns and to try and establish how many pairs of Mediterranean Gulls are nesting on the reserve, I got to work ringing young Black-headed Gulls on the other side of the island.

It's always the case when you visit busy colonies such as Blue Circle, that there will be pairs at various stages of breeding. There were some very large young on the verge of fledging, in fact I did see one bird fledge, but there are also plenty of recently hatched young...

...and there are even quite a few pairs still on eggs.

This is my first ringing visit to any of our study colonies, so I was delighted to see that there were many chicks of a suitable size for ringing. I had hoped to post a photo of 2BFF and crack a joke about how we were best mates, but unfortunately the colour-ring snapped as I was sliding it over the applicator (i.e. outer covering from an old pen!), so here's the next best thing, 2BFD.

In the end, seventy-seven birds were ringed, of which 51 were also colour-ringed. A great start to the breeding season and there will hopefully be a few more visits to colonies in the next 3-4 weeks.

As well as the gulls and terns, Blue Circle Island is also home to several other species of seabird and wildfowl, and while checking under vegetation for hiding chicks, I came across this wonderful mallard nest.

Many thanks to RSPB NI for granting permission to ring on their reserve and to Matthew Tickner for providing the transport!

First 2014 visit to Castle Espie Black-headed Gull colony

Last week I paid a short visit to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Centre at Castle Espie, on the shores of Strangford Lough, to see how the Black-headed Gull colony was faring.

Castle Espie is an absolutely brilliant site and if you want to experience the sights and sounds of a Black-headed Gull colony during the breeding season, there is no more accessible site in Northern Ireland. You can even watch four nests on the small island just outside the cafe!

The colony is quite sporadically spread out across the site, with a couple of nests in where the wildfowl collection are kept, with the main nesting areas on the shingle bank between the main lake and new saltmarsh, the freshwater lagoon on the small island in the saline lagoon.

Spot the egg!

BHG nesting beside duck box in wildfowl area

The first chicks were spotted around the weekend of 24-25 May and there were a number of small, fluffy chicks up and running around. There were also still quite a few birds incubating.

Black-headed Gull chicks on Saline Lagoon island

As you can see, the WWT staff at Castle Espie are trying to do their bit for Black-headed Gulls by placing information boards around the colony for the public to read.

As well as ringing chicks, I also found ten nests which are hopefully easy enough for me to re-find so they can be monitored as part of the BTO's Nest Record Scheme (NRS). The staff at Castle Espie are also keeping an eye to try and establish clutch sizes and productivity levels, so they're helping add to our knowledge of this red-listed species of conservation concern.

Settling back down onto clutch

One of the more unusual nest sites

A rough estimate of the colony is just under 500 nesting pairs and we're hoping to include some of the chicks in our colour-ringing study in the next couple of weeks.

Black-headed Gull - Black P309

Back in December I recorded a colour-ringed Black-headed Gull in the car park at Castlewellan Forest Park which, I knew from my sighting of P736 last winter (see here), was a Lithuanian ringed bird.

I reported it to the Lithuanian Bird Ringing Centre and earlier this month I heard back that the bird was ringed on 29 March 2010 by Vytautas Pareigis and Frank Majoor at Dumpių sąvartynas in western Lithuania.

This was the first sighting of the bird since ringing.

Many thanks to Lithuanian Bird Ringing Centre for providing the information.

Another couple of firsts.....

Hot on the heels of the first records of 2AVX and 2J03 at the end of last month, at the start of this month I got word of two more "firsts".

The first-first was received on 4th May when Kev Kirkham-Brown got in touch to say he had photographed a colour-ringed Black-headed Gull from the hide at WWT Castle Espie.

It was hard to make out, but I could just about see the inscription 2AFC. I checked the database and this bird was one of nine (eight adults and one first winter) we caught and ringed at Castle Espie at the end of March last year. This was the first re-sighting of 2AFC since it had been ringed, although I suspect it may be breeding at the site, so I'll have to head down for a quick scan of the colony for rings.

Photo by Kev Kirkham-Brown

The next day, the guys at the Northern Ireland Birdwatchers' Association (NIBA) passed on a photo that Stuarty McKee had taken at Whitehouse Lagoon, Belfast Lough. It was a first-winter bird which was ringed as 2AFF. 

Photo by Stuarty McKee

2AFF was one of the birds ringed on Mew Island during an evening trip last June by members of Copeland Bird Observatory and it had been ringed by John Stewart (see here). This too was a first re-sighting, meaning that 62 of the 151 birds ringed so far have been seen at least once since.

Many thanks to Kev and Stuarty for the sightings and photographs.