Garbage gulls

Back on the tip again today, once again really enjoyable and got more involved than the last time. An adult Med Gull soared around early on as we were setting up - shame it didn't end up in our catch as I'd loved to have seen one close up. But here it is flying around.

We did a couple of catches, mainly Herrings today with a fair few of those real brutes - GBBGs. Nice to see them in the hand like this: -

Being obvious and pretty much monotypic, you don't really look too hard at GBBGs - but good to see a spread wing 

2cy GBBG with its new bling

 And also one of the birds in the nets was a Norwegian control, just like this bird that I managed to ring read as it chilled out on one of the mounds: -

adult GBBG 'JH413'; ringed at Mandar, Vest-Agder, Norway on 3rd June 2011 and last reported in Norway on 19th August 2011.

I had a go at a bit of bird handling, and now used to Black-headed Gulls. They're pretty meagre really, and only give you a quick nip even if they're going at you full throttle.

3cy Black-headed Gull - note the retained dark feathering on the primary-coverts

And then I just about managed to deal with the a bit of large gull action. I was glad that I didn't venture any bigger than Herring Gulls, as there was a fair bit of blood being drawn by those GBBGs...

Once the ringing had finished, I headed back to the south [best] side of the river, and spent the last  couple of hours of light unsuccessfully looking for a Bittern at Crossness. Another decent day locally.