BIRDING THE LUNE ESTUARY THE FOREST OF BOWLAND AND BEYOND......................................................MEDITTERANEAN GULLS CONDER POOL PETE WOODRUFF

Wednesday 1 August 2018

Mainly Gulls & Terns.

A pleasant and enjoyable 2.5 hours at Heysham yesterday, sifting through the gulls between bouts of human disturbance. Interesting that my meager count of 26 Mediterranean Gull, was just a reversal of the number, when later in the day I find the report of an amazing 62 seen in the a.m. of the same morning.

Mediterranean Gull Red Nab Heysham 31 July. Pete Woodruff.

This was the result of my best opportunity of a pik, with 20 birds found on Red Nab, 4 on the south side of No 2 outfall, and 2 on the north. Also, the adult Little Gull barely beginning to moult out of summer plumage, 2 Whimbrel, and last Thursdays at least 1,000 Dunlin seen again.

Having not been to Conder Green since Thursday last, I was keen to see what the picture was there, to find 5 Common Tern, seen as the pontoon adults, and the island pair with the chick still surviving. It was good to find a new peak of 10 Little Grebe, 5 Common Sandpiper, a lone Black-tailed Godwit and Snipe, c.150 Redshank and similar Lapwing, and 9 Greylag dropped in on Conder Pool as they had whilst I was there 23 July.

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I'm grateful to PJM and the ringers in Poland for dealing with this Red Darvic Mediterranean Gull which I found on Red Nab at Heysham last Thursday, when eventually it obliged by coming closer as the tide ran in. Although the blow up doesn't help, the difficulties of ring reading are clearly illustrated in this photograph, when the bottom digit on this bird couldn't be separated 4 from A through my telescope. But life was made easier when we find that the code is made up of three letters and a number, so the letter A was eliminated. 

Hence PKR4 had been found on 26 July on Red Nab at Heysham in Lancashire, England, 1518km WNW of Wisla, Mazowleckie, Poland, where it had been ringed 2 months earlier to the day on 26 May 2018 as a breeding 3cy female. Interestingly, the metal ring on the birds right leg was apparently already in place on this bird at the time of ringing. 

1 comment:

  1. Beautiful Med Gull, and with the ring, fantastic Pete.

    ReplyDelete