All Gulls And Waders

A look along the Estuary mid morning showed that a bit of duff weather does indeed entice Gulls in. We always have a much higher number of Black-backed Gulls around when the weather is a bit pants, in fact almost the entire flock of large Gulls by the tram sheds were of the Black-backed varieties...

Sadly though nothing rarer... Kelp Gull one day!

I counted a total of 38 Lesser Black-backed Gulls of mixed ages and mixed mantle shades, and one of these was colour-ringed - I will inform all when I get the history back. It actually proved an excellent day for colour-ringed Gulls, as I also had two colour-ringed Great Black-backs and this colour-ringed adult Med...

Again, I will inform all of the life history of this bird when I hear back

Now to waders, and today's top wader was a Sanderling north of Coronation Corner early afternoon with 35 Ringed Plover and half-a-dozen Dunlin. On the Estuary there were also ten Blackwits, I'd forgotten just how stunning juv Blackwits are - so beautifully marked...

Six of the flock looked like this

Over on Black Hole Marsh it was the same as it has been, with three Wood Sands, three Greenshanks, two Lapwing and the Knot being the most notable birds.

Not in keeping with the post title were the 4+ Yellow Wags that flew over the river opposite the Tower Hide.

Colour-ringed Gulls

Sorry for the lack of blog updates - 'free time' is not something I've had much of recently.

Instead of writing a monster post now detailing the last five days of my life, I'll break it down into smaller posts - tackling different subject matters with each post. And this post is going to be all about.... colour-ringed Gulls! Bet you are all jumping for joy :-)

Herring Gull Orange MG6T

This bird has been around the Axe all winter, I think I've seen him/her about three or four times - with the last day of March being the most recent. Orange MG6T has his/her own web page with all the sightings (though not all of mine), a map and even some photos.... http://www.ntgg.org.uk/cgi-bin/map.cgi?p=recmap&t=r&r=GC86809

Notice in the pictures how the 'orange' ring actually looks very red! But apparently it is orange!?

Herring Gull White O.AX2

This bird was ringed in Guernsey at Chouet Landfill by Paul Veron and his team on 27/05/10. On 14/7/10 I saw him on the Estuary, so seeing him again a couple of days ago (on 4th) begs the question whether he has been here all winter?

Great Black-backed Gull Yellow O.HH2

I saw this bird by the tram sheds also on 4th April, and it is another Gull with a ring on thanks to Paul and his Guernsey Gull ringing team. It was ringed as a chick at Crevichon (which is somewhere on Guernsey) on 22/06/10. After it fledged it wasn't seen again until it was back on Guernsey on 18/3/11 - but it clearly didn't stay long!

Yellow O.HH2 on 4/4/11 - Axe Estuary

Yellow O.HH2 on 22/06/10 - somewhere on Guernsey! Thanks for the photo Paul :-)