Rufford - 5th February 2022

 I spent yesterday morning at Rufford Country Park. I got there earlier than I usually do, so that I could walk across the the Abbey and have a look for some Hawfinches. It was a little windy, but I managed to get  brief views of 2 birds in the trees around the car park. Walking back through the park, I also spotted 15 Redwings, a large flock of Siskin, 1 Grey Heron, 14 Goosander (8 females and 6 males), 1 Little Egret (my first record for this site), 6 Mute Swans (3 adults and 3 young birds, including W17357) and a whopping 66 Common Gull.

Also on the water were approximately 150 Black-headed Gulls. I spotted 12 darvic-ringed birds: 223A (first ringed in February 2019, and my first sighting since October 2020), 258A, 264A (ringed in February 2020, and the first sighting since), 281A (3rd sighting, since ringing in December 2021), 293A (5th sighting), 294A (first sighting), 295A (2nd sighting), EUM3 (Dutch bird), P519 (Lithuanian bird), JO116 ( Norwegian bird) and 204B, a new bird, first ringed in January 2022. In addition, I also saw the Norwegian-ringed Common Gull JN075.

264A

294A

204B

The Hawfinches were a new bird for the year and bring Year List to 103, following Raven and Chough, that I saw last week in Wales.

Year List update:

101 - Raven

102 - Chough

103 - Hawfinch

Rufford Gulls - 6th January 2022

After a short visit to Rufford on Wednesday, I decided to go back again yesterday. It had been very cold overnight, and more than half of the lake was covered in ice - always a good sign when checking gulls' legs!!

As soon as I got there, I could see that there were 400+ gulls out on the ice! The vast majority were Black-headed Gulls, with a minimum of 10 Common Gulls, 4 Lesser Black-backed Gulls and 1 Herring Gull. Over the course of 3 hours, I managed to spot 12 darvic-ringed Black-headed Gulls (217A, 258A, 273A, 279A, 281A, 293A, 295A, 297A, J0116, EUM3, P519 and V77K), 1 metal ringed Black-headed Gull (EL87245- a well known bird) and a new darvic ringed Common Gull (JN075 - an adult bird, ringed on 12th August 2020, near Oslo, Norway).

JN075

Of the 12 darviced birds, just 3 were new ones, I'd not seen before (279A, 295A and 297A). All are birds ringed at Center Parcs this winter.

279A

295A

297A

In addition, there were 13 Mute Swans ( 9 adults and 4 juveniles, born last year), including a 1 metal ringed bird (W17357 - a bird that had been ringed on 10th February 2016, as a 5 i.e. born in 2015) and a darvic-ringed bird (CPF3/W48296 - another new bird, originally ringed as a 3 male, i.e. born that year, in Cheshire, on 16th November 2019).

CPF3

New Black-headed Gull - VA5573

There were about 200 Black-headed Gulls at Rufford CP yesterday, including three well known birds, 217A, 237A and V77K (see labels for details of these birds). The sighting of 237A was the first since March 2020 (see here). In addition, a new, 1st winter bird (born this year) bearing a Danish metal ring, VA5573 was seen. 

Danish-ringed Black-headed Gull VA5573

VA5573

Details received from the Danish Ringing Scheme show that the bird was ringed, as a pullus, 877km away, on Hirsholm, Denmark on 25th May 2020.

In addition to the gulls there were also two metal-ringed Mute Swans, W17370 and W17357. The former bird was also present on my last visit, and had been ringed by Birklands RG, 3km away in September 2014. W17357 had also been ringed by Birklands RG, 3km away. It was ringed, as a age 5 bird (born in 2015), on 10th February 2016.

W17357

The final rings read were 2 Canada Geese (5230424 and 5215963) and 1 Greylag Goose (5230471). All 3 birds had been sighted previously, and had been ringed just 3km away (click on the labels to see ringing details).