A handful of Casps and copious amounts of rings

A nice bright day today, and with that for some reason the tip was really busy (which often it isn't in bright conditions). With a good area to view both the loafing gulls and the tip face, there was a fair amount of action and a lot of movement of birds too. It was a heavy day for both decent species, but also my single best day for rings - 38 rings read from 7 different projects! Here's a summary: -

- 5 Caspian Gulls (two adults and three first-winters)

- 3 Yellow-legged Gulls (an adult, a near-adult and a first-winter - the near adult bird was ringed at Rainham last winter and has been to France and Switzerland in between now and then)

- 3 Mediterranean Gulls (two adults and a first-winter)

- a pale-winged first-winter bird, presumably of northern origin with some Glaucous Gull genes

- 38 gull rings with 27 North Thames Gull Group birds, two Dutch-ringed birds and others from Sussex, Suffolk, Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire.

No puncture either, which made a change compared to the last three weeks! So all in all, a very enjoyable day that ended with a Kingfisher during a short walk around Russia Dock Woodland, Rotherhithe.

1st-winter Caspian Gull 29th November 2014



adult Caspian Gull 29th November 2014 - note the underside to P10

1st-winter Caspian Gull 29th November 2014 (above two photos) - a dusky bird in comparison to the first photo

Yellow-legged Gull 29th November 2014 - ringed (YY5T) at Rainham Tip, London on 22nd Feb 2014 and then seen at Blaringhem, Nord, France on 27th February 2014 before spending time Ile aux oiseaux de Preverenges, Lausanne, Switzerland from 9th April to 1st May 2014

Dutch-ringed Herring Gull 29th November 2014 - ringed by Kees Camphuysen as a breeding adult on Texel, Netherlands on 25th May 2014. Its nest of 3 eggs this year got predated unfortunately.