Gulls, Cormorants, Stormies and CES 6

Some varied ringing for the Group in the last week.
We visited Caldy Island with the Pembrokeshire Ringing Group to ring Herring Gulls as part of a study that Steve has been running for 46 years.
A beautiful spot to spend a couple of hours ringing 200 gulls in what is probably the third largest Herring Gull colony in the UK

One of the gulls was leucistic. There is a leucistic adult Herring Gull in the area so maybe this is its chick.

 Compare the paleness of this with a normal Herring Gull chick

The next island to visit was St Margarets, just off Caldy, to ring Cormorants. Some numbers from Steve later but there were a good number of healthy large young Cormorants, many too big to ring.

As the moon enters a phase of rising later it is time to head to the coast at night to catch Storm Petrels. On Thursday night, when it never really seemed to get dark, we ringed the first 2 of the year at Mwnt. This brings the group's total caught to 60.

Back to our regular ringing site on the Teifi Marsh for CES 6 this morning. It was a slow with the temperature only 7°c but a successful morning with 79 birds caught , 57 new and 22 retrap. Juvs of several species including this Kingfisher.

Some nets were also up on a different part of the reserve and three early juvenile Sedge Warblers were ringed there along with the first juvenile Reed Bunting to be entered into our colour-ringing project.

Hoping for some calm weather this week for some late night sessions to try to catch more Storm Petrels. Reed Warblers should be fledging soon along with early returning migrants so our nets will be up in the reed beds when weather permits.

Just working through today's CES retraps,
X974517 a male Chaffinch was ringed nearly 5 years ago in September 2009. Today is the first time that we have retrapped him........amazing as we ring the site frequently !!