GBBG Ring Recovery

I saw this bird ages ago on the 17^th Feb  2013. Looking at it now it’s actually quite easy to work out the code, but at the time, for some reason, I gave up!

Yellow OL3

Well yesterday I showed it to Lee C and he steered me in the right direction.

It's actually a gull that he's seen before at the warren last autumn (23^rd Sept 2012). It was ringed on Guernsey as a chick in 2009 and appeared to spend its first year at Portland/Radipole. Lee saw it next on the 2012 autumn passage, and then I got it on its way back up again on its way back to Radipole Lake.

There were quite a few GBBGs on the estuary today with 76, vast majority of which were adults. The c340 Black-headed Gulls on the estuary contained either one or two adult Meds. One was a different bird than the ones seen on Sunday (not fully hooded). On my final scan I saw one about a kilometre away and so couldn’t work out if it was the same bird or not.

I got a good low tide count of 77 Curlew and our first four returning Whimbrel. The first returning Dunlin was on the spit at Passage House and five Common Sands were on site. Now 49 Little Egret and there seems to be yet another brood of Shelduck! Eight of them!

Here’s a slightly closer shot of the quiz picture. The adult Med is obvious but is this the other one you found Steve? Looks like a BHG to me.