Ringing Round-up

-A quick update on our recent ringing activities…..

We’ve had a few days off from ringing during the festive period, but with only a few days left of the year – we’re now back out catching & ringing.

Over the last few days we’ve made trips to Lake Windermere, Southport Marine Lake & Crompton Lodges – mainly ringing wildfowl and gulls.

At Windermere we caught 14 Black Headed Gull & 1 control (above). Plus a new species to be ringed at Windermere – a Common Gull!

Meanwhile today at Southport the thaw seems to have set in (at last!) and we continued with the good run of Coots, catching 30 new birds & recapping 2. Whilst Ciaran concentrated on catching Tufted Duck (9 caught), I also caught & darvic’d 10 Mute Swan for the North West Swan Study.

Finally - during two days at Crompton Lodges we caught 31 new Coot & recapped 5, which had colour rings fitted…

Thanks to Ciaran, Craig, Sam Bayley & Callum Hatsell for their help during the last few days…..

Gull Grabbing.

I was dropping Ciaran off in Preston this afternoon, so we decided we’d take a quick look at the docks for Black Headed Gull rings. When we arrived we were greeted by lots of gulls which were eager to have a feed before they went off to roost. It was obvious the gulls were going to be easy to catch, so we decided to catch a few…. after 1hr 30mins of catching/ringing, a few turned into 41 new birds & 1 control – that of a Norwegian ringed bird!

For any ring readers at Preston Docks, or birders who are going to see the Iceland Gull, who maybe interested in giving ring reading a go. All the rings start with – EX541**. All the juvs were ringed on the left leg, the reason for this is because there is a Danish ringed juvy, ringed on the right leg & it'll allow Ciaran to easily pick this bird out, and hopefully read the full ring code.