Gulling

We were out in the national forest yesterday morning in a well planned effort to ring Black-headed Gull & tern chicks. Four of us set off in a small motorized craft. Huge thanks to the Forestry Commission and rangers, without whom this would have been impossible.

Moving around the island carefully & methodically we used up the 100 E rings we had in no time at all! Despite our best efforts to match rings to the number of chicks estimated from the shoreline, there were still a number of ringable age that we had to leave. We also located and ringed 6 Common Terns.

Newly hatched Black-headed Gull chick (the egg to the right was in the process of hatching). At this age and size however this was too small to ring but lovely to see nonetheless.

Common Tern chick.