Black Headed Gull Project Year 2

Last Summer we colour ringed 125 Black Headed Gull chicks in an effort to understand the movements of chicks from a new colony at our Belvide site. We have had some very interesting results some of which I've outline both here and in West Midland Bird Club newsletters. I decided that we would only ring chicks in two consecutive years because as time went on it clearly would not be regarded as a 'new' colony.

Terrible wet and windy weather on Saturday meant a complex but worthwhile change to Sunday when we were treated to sunny calm conditions perfect for the job. So it was that 17 souls in 4 teams with specific jobs mustered at 6 am ready for a detailed briefing.

The first team in action were our good friends from Cannock Sea Scouts whose very important job was to control movements of any chicks which decided they wanted to be elsewhere. They did a superb job and reported how much fun it had been doing something completely different. Tracey and son Henry seem to be enjoying themselves in the pictures below:-

Henry and Tracey on duty

The rest of the teams were assigned to ringing chicks on the island, on the shore and managing transport to and from the island. The birders also did a great job collecting those chicks hiding in the shore vegetation and passing them to the ringers.

We allowed ourselves just under an hour to get the job done and we were very successful with 108 chicks ringed. The picture below shows a well grown chick sporting a BTO metal ring on its right leg and a colour ring on its left which can be seen by birders with telescopes. This is why we get such a lot of reports from projects like this.

Now we wait and see where they disperse to. Big thanks to everyone who played a part yesterday!!