Recent Gull Sightings

The frustratingly mild winter we've has this year has meant that gulls haven't been very hungry, making catching them quite challenging. However, some interesting sightings have come from the birds we've managed to ring. We had good numbers of northern Argentatus Herring Gulls about at the beginning of the year. Distinctively pale plumaged first winter Herring Gull T:610 (above), which was ringed at Peterhead Harbour on 8th January, confirmed its Scandinavian roots when it was seen and photographed by Arnt Kvinnesland at Ferkingstad, Karmoy, Norway (below) on the 14th March.

The past few months we've also had lots of sightings from the Herring Gulls we ringed during the summer. Most of these have been around North East Scotland, but we've have had several birds travel further south, mostly to England, and recently one to Ouddorp in the Netherlands. A map of our long distance Herring Gull movements is below. We are now down to a 1 in 4 sighting

rate overall.

Glaucous Gull T:193, ringed last August at the Ugie Estuary, Peterhead (below with a satisfied Calum) which was then seen at Boldon Flats, Durham in Decemeber, has been sighted again several times across England.

It was seen at Newburn Sewer, Seaton Carew on 15th January, and then it went down to Cotham Landfill Site, Nottinghamshire for a couple of weeks from the 18th February (photographed below by Nick Crouch). It was next seen for a few days at Ogston Reservoir, Derbyshire from the 8th March. It then went north again, and was at Longnewton Reservoir, Cleveland on the 24th and 25th March.

It will be interesting to to see where it turns up next. Please look out for it and any other colour ringed gulls, send sightings to e.ferguson17@hotmail.co.uk. All our gulls have yellow rings with the letter T followed by a colon and three numbers.

A big thank you to all observers and photographers.

Euan

Gulls on the move

T:605, Duthie Park (Ewan Weston)

We are now getting some interesting sightings from the gulls we've been colour ringing since the summer. Most of our sightings have been from Herring Gulls around Aberdeenshire, however some have gone further afield. We've had two, both ringed on the same day, seen in England, one at Greatham Creek, Teesside and one at North Hykeham, Lincolnshire. Going further south was Herring Gull T:228, ringed at Torry in August and seen in Boulogne-sur-Mer, Pas-de-Calais, France four months later. This is only the second Grampian ringed Herring Gull recorded in France, the previous had been ringed as a chick.

T:209, Peterhead (Chris Gibbins)

The bird that has travelled the greatest distance so far is Lesser Black-backed Gull, T:027, ringed at the end of June in the Asda car park beside Aberdeen beach. It was caught by hand after it was chased inside a shopping trolley!

It was then sighted in September at El Puerto de Santa Maria in the south of Spain. It was resighted several times into November. We only colour ringed seven Lesser Black-backed Gulls this summer, so we were very pleased to get such a good movement out of one of them.

T:027, El Puerto de Santa Maria (Rafa Garcia)

Similarly, we have also only colour ringed seven Great Black-backed Gulls so far, yet we've still had one venture abroad! T:007 was ringed on boxing day at Peterhead Harbour, and seen four days later in St. Peter Ording, Germany!

A nice surprise this summer was managing to colour ring a Glaucous Gull at the Ugie Estuary, Peterhead on the 3rd August. We heard nothing at all about this birds whereabouts until it was seen at Boldon Flats, Durham on 23rd December. Few Glaucous Gulls have been ringed in the UK, so it will be interesting to see where this bird turns up next.

Thank you to all observers and photographers. Please check all Gulls you see for colour rings, all our rings are yellow with the letter T followed by a colon and three numbers.

Euan

Last Gulls of the Summer

We've reached the end of summer and the end of our gull darvics. The 250th was put on a Lesser Black-backed Gull today, after a whoosh net catch on Aberdeen beach. Time to order some new rings!

Most of the birds ringed over the summer have been Herring Gulls, but seven Lesser Black-backed Gull, two Greater Black-backed Gulls and a Glaucous Gull have also been colour ringed. The Glaucous is the first to be ringed in the UK since 2002, with only 60 birds having ever been ringed.

The first Greater Black-backed Gull (above) we colour ringed this year at Fraserburgh was seen 45 miles away at Lossiemouth 4 days later. Having only ringed two Greaters so far that's a good resighting rate! We intend to catch more this autumn at the harbours up north.

Several birds we caught had already been metal ringed. The oldest was ringed as a chick at Aberdeen harbour in 1997. Many gulls are now being resighted around the city. The photo below shows two juveniles we'd ringed at different sites standing right next to each other. Amazingly we'd only ringed three juveniles at that stage! From our resightings we are seeing that breeding birds don't necessarily feed near the nest site, with birds ringed in our gardens in the suburbs seen on rooftops 8 miles away in the city centre. Hopefully more resightings will help us understand more about the movements and population of Aberdeens gulls.

Please check all gulls you see for colour rings.

Euan