Danish Black-headed Gull

Yesterday, Luke and I were at Poolsbrook CP for a few hours. Whilst there, we managed to spot a metal ringed Black-headed Gull from Denmark (3rd of the winter!).

Danish BH Gull

I heard back today, and the bird had been ringed on the small island of Sprogø, 830km away, as a chick on 2nd June 2017. Nice!!

Whilst there, we also had 2 ringed Greylag Geese. The 2 ring numbers were sequential, and the birds looked like an adult and a juvenile birds, so they were most likely ringed together. I'll update the blog as soon as we hear back from the BTO. A very tame Pink-footed Goose was also present, and associating with the Greylags.

Greylags and Pink-footed Goose

UPDATE: Both Greylag Geese were ringed at Poolsbrook on 5th September 2016, so they haven't gone very far. 98 was born in 2018 and 99 was ringed as "at least 1 year old".

Colour-ringed Coot

I was across at Poolsbrook Country Park in Chesterfield yesterday afternoon, looking for a Caspian Gull (no luck there though!), when I spotted a colour-ringed Coot (FBL), feeding with the Mallards, Canada Geese and Black-headed Gulls.

This is the first ever colour-ringed Coot I've seen, and as soon as I saw it I thought of Kane Brides, of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, who I know has been ringing Coots this way in the North West of England, for several years. I sent him a picture of the bird via Twitter,and heard back that the ring was in fact from his project. This morning, however, I received a Tweet from David of Sorby Breck Ringing Group to let me know that the bird had been ringed by Dan, a member of our own group at Thrybergh CP near Rotherham just last week, on January 22nd. See details of his recent ringing activities on the his website here.

As well as the Coot, I also managed to spot about 100 Black-headed Gulls, a couple of Herring Gulls, dozens of Canada Geese and Mallards, including this funny looking hybrid. Any ideas?

Mallard hybrid

This winter plumaged Great-crested Grebe put on quite a show as well.

Great-crested Grebe

Iceland Gull

Hot on the heels of last week's Glaucous Gull, comes the other "white winger" with an adult Iceland Gull at Poolsbrook Country Park. Here's a photo of the preening bird.

Iceland Gull

This bird has been seen on and off for the last few days, and I managed to catch up with it this afternoon. As you can see from the picture, the bird spent most of the time preening or asleep!

The gull, along with Canada and Greylag Goose that were also seen at Poolsbrook. have now been added to the "year list", along with Mute Swan, Gadwall and Grey Heron, that were seen on an afternoon trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Year List update:

 

65 – Canada Goose

66 – Greylag Goose
67 – Iceland Gull
68 – Mute Swan
69 – Gadwall
70 – Grey Heron

Glaucous Gull - Poolsbrook CP

No ringing today, due to snow, wind and family commitments, so when I heard about a juvenile Glaucous Gull at Poolsbrook Country Park, I thought I'd have a drive across to try and see it. I was in luck, with the bird present on the main lake and "showing well". I managed some decent photos, and a little bit of video footage (see here).

Glaucous Gull

As well as the Glaucous Gull, there were also Black-headed, Common, Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, so I managed a couple of "year ticks".

Year List update:

63 – Great Black-backed Gull

64 – Glaucous Gull

Return to the reeds- ringing tick.

Way back in March I blogged about a ringing trip to Poolsbrook Marsh near Chesterfield (see here).  Unfortunately, until Sunday we've been unable to get back to this site to do any ringing, due to the terrible weather we've been having.

Sunday's trip was a very early start of 5.30am and, once we'd reloacted the ringing rides, cut back the reeds and put the nets up, we waited to see how the reedbed breeders had fared. The first net round seemed okay when 2 Reed Warblers (1 adult and 1 juvenile) found their way into the nets. Unfortunately, the following rounds were very disappointing with just 1 more Reed Warbler ( a retrap, possibly from last year) being caught and absolutely no Sedge or Grasshopper Warblers at all!

Reed Warbler (my first!)

Luckily, we had also put up a couple of nets in the scrub around the reedbeds and we did get a good catch of mixed tits and warblers (Blue Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff) in them bringing the day's total to 21 birds.

Other birds seen on site were: Swift (2), Swallow, Mute Swan, Grey Heron and Kingfisher.

The Reed Warbler was a year tick:

149 - Reed Warbler

Poolsbrook Country Park and Apperknowle- 17th February 2012

After an exciting visit to Tesco this afternoon I thought I'd try my luck with the gull roost at Poolsbrook Country Park following recent reports of both Iceland and Mediterranean Gulls. On arrival there were approximately 300 gulls of the main lake, the vast majority being Black-headed Gulls. Mixed in amongst them were Great Black-backed, Lesser Black-backed, and Herring Gulls, but unfortunately no "white winged gulls" today.

Great Black-backed Gull with Herring Gull (left)

and Black-headed Gull (behind)

Great Black-backed (left hand bird)

and Lesser Black-backed Gull

Herring Gull

On the drive back I stopped off at Apperknowle after spotting a few shapes huddled in the middle of the field. These turned out to be Golden Plover, 10 in total. Also here were 2 Grey Partridges (year tick), see here for a picture taken in the same field last year, and a Brown Hare.

Golden Plover

Brown Hare

The Year List has moved on 1 more species:

85 – Grey Partridge