Clumber and Rufford - 12th March 2023

 On Sunday, I spent an hour at Clumber and an hour at Rufford, checking the Black-headed Gulls.

Although there were several hundreds gulls at Clumber (mostly Black-headed, but also Common and Herring) I only managed to spot one ringed bird, 208B. As it turned out, this bird was a new one for me, and this sighting was the first since being ringed, at Center Parcs, on 15th January 2022, as an adult bird. As you can see, it's in full breeding plumage, and looking very smart!

208B

Rufford was quieter, with just 100ish Black-headed Gulls around, but I did manage to see 12 green-ringed birds; 206A, 279A, 284A, 295A, 202B, 255B, 276B, 293B, 202C, 207C, 209C, 214C and 215C and a familiar metal-ringed bird EL87245. 

In addition to 208B, I also had 2 other new birds: 209C and 214C. 209C had been ringed at Center Parcs on 22nd December 2022, as a 3, born in 2022.

209C

214C, also a 1st winter bird, born in 2022, had also been ringed at Center Parcs, on 28th December 2022. 

214C

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