Colour Ring Number 200

I have just reached the grand total of 200 successful colour-ring readings at Shawell A5 Lagoons. The 200th was a 3rd year Herring Gull which was ringed last year at Pitsea Landfill Site, Essex.

The most numerous species encountered wearing colour-rings was Lesser Black-backed Gull. 

The totals for all the gull species recorded with colour-rings is:

174 Lesser Black-backed Gulls

18 Herring Gulls

3 Black-headed Gulls

3 Great Black-backed Gulls 

1 Common Gull

1 Hybrid Yellow-legged x Herring Gull

The locations where they were ringed and the totals for each are:

Belguim 3

Channel Islands 6

Croatia 1

Denmark 5

England 115

Germany 8

Iceland 2

Netherlands 23

Norway 25

Poland 1

Portugal 1

Scotland 3

Spain 3

Wales 4

Colour-ringed Herring Gull

The oldest colour-ringed gull was a Lesser Black-backed Gull ringed on 12th July 1992 in Suffolk. This 21 year old was re-caught  in Holland during 2011 and a colour-ring was fitted then.

The furthest south one of the Lesser Black-backed Gulls has travelled was to Mauritania; others have travelled to Western Sahara and Morocco. Many of the LBB Gulls that visit Shawell have previously been seen in Spain and Portugal during winter.

The furthest travelled Herring Gull was a first-winter that was ringed 2186 kilometres away in Tromso, Norway.

Quite a few have been seen on more than one occasion. My favourite is a female LBB Gull - Blue JL67 - a Norweigian ringed gull that I have seen on seven different occasions so far. 

One of the Black-headed Gulls was ringed in Croatia in 2010. As far I know, this is the first record of a Croatian colour-ringed BH Gull to be seen in Britain.

My target now is to find both a colour-ringed Caspian Gull and a Yellow-legged Gull. Considering the amount of Yellow-legged Gull legs I've check this might not be that easy - oh well!

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the ringers who have provided me with the life histories of the colour-ringed gulls.

I've added a link below to a map of the Shawell area showing the lagoons near the A5 and north of there the landfill site.

For a Google map of the Shawell area click HERE