Old Faithful

Numbers of Black-headed Gulls in the UK are swollen during winter with visitors from northern Europe. To track the movements of these birds there are various ringing programs implemented that affix a brightly coloured, and therefore easily seen, plastic ring to one leg as well as the more conventional small metal ring to the other. The rings do the birds no harm, but do allow members of the public to easily record their sightings. There is a spot not far from where I live which always has a posse of these dainty, but raucous birds mugging passers by for chunks of bread and scraps. There is a 2-way ringing program here with local naturalists ringing birds during the winter to record their summer distribution, and overwintering birds from Europe occasionally turning up to give details of their origins. I’ve written in more detail about that here.  Once, whilst feeding the ever-hungry ducks with my grandson, we watched a guy catch a gull with his bare hands, retiring to a convenient bench to attach a ring. Skilled work indeed. Me and the lad sat down to watch and have a chat, resulting in my young charge saying afterwards ‘Grandad I’ll never forget that’. From such an acorn I’m hoping a mighty oak will grow.

This bird, T2X8, was ringed in Poland during the summer of 2017 and regularly turns up in Norwich

 

J9Z5 in 2023

Taking advantage of a bright sunny day, we spent a few minutes at Salthouse on the North Norfolk coast this afternoon. As hoped for, Black-headed Gull J9Z5 was present looking healthy and pristine. This bird is tracked regularly by visitors to this place, and you can see below some of its history. It was ringed in Norway in June 2013, and a decade later is still going strong. The most remarkable thing as far as I’m concerned is that is shows amazing faithfulness to its chosen wintering grounds, travelling nearly 1000km every year to compete with the milling throng that congregate around these small pools. Quite remarkable.

Some of the History of J9Z5