My best ever ringing recovery!

While at Choshi Port, Japan, in late January I happened across a ringed, but somewhat unhealthy looking, adult Vega Gull. My assumption was that this might have been ringed locally but, when it transpired that it didn't belong to a Japanese scheme, my ears were pricked.

I've just had word back from the Bird Ringing Centre in Moscow that this is a Russian bird. It was ringed in the Chaunskiy district of Chukotka, Russia, on 22 July 2017 and my sighting at Choshi is the first since then. More impressively, Choshi is 4,107 km from where this bird was ringed - quite incredible, and easily my 'furthest' recovery. In London, where we deal mainly in Herring Gull rings, I usually see London-ringed birds, that have just about flown across the breadth of the capital, or, more exotically, birds from Suffolk or Yorkshire. Occasionally there's a more interesting Common, Lesser Black-backed or Great Black-backed from elsewhere in Europe.

To get such a recovery on this Vega perhaps isn't too surprising given where they breed, but I was nevertheless flabbergasted when I opened the email first realised just how far away from Choshi this bird had been ringed!

How far the Vega Gull has travelled - so far that you can see the corners of the earth in this Google Earth screenshot!

Adult Vega Gull 'G4Y' - looking rather worse for wear. Perhaps not much left in the tank for this bird.

Ringed Black-headed Gulls on the Thames

Here are a few ringed Black-headed Gulls that I had on the Thames last week ...

1) Adult yellow ' 2PJB', Barnes, 5 December. Ringed at Pitsea, Essex, in March 2016. More details here.

2) Adult white 'EE5T', Fulham, 5 December 2016. Ringed as an adult at Griend, Netherlands, on 6 June 2016. First recorded in the UK at Hyde Park, London, on 19 October before my sighting in Fulham.

3) Adult metal 'HV11.766' ringed as pullus at lake (55.1192, 23.7542) north of Kaunas, Lithuania, on 18 June 2011. Not recorded subsequently until in Chiswick on 2 December 2016!

Ringed Med Gull in South Lincs

Each morning before heading over to Rutland, I spent half hour or so checking out some of the more likely spots around my old patch, Baston & Langtoft Pits. Despite some decent wader habitat, I managed nothing than a couple of Green Sandpipers. Wildfowl proved a little more dynamic, with nine Shoveler and a Wigeon on 19th, and five Teal in this morning (20th). Also this morning, among no more than 30 or so Black-headed Gulls, was this fine juvenile Mediterranean Gull:

As can be seen above, a white darvic was pretty obvious on the bird's left leg, with a small metal ring on the right. Creeping closer, it was possible to make out the code "E932". I'm guessing this bird will be from the Netherlands, but will confirm when feedback comes through.

Ringed juvenile Yellow-legged Gull

In my previous posting on Sunday, I remained intentionally vague about a yellow-ringed juvenile gull seen at Rainham on Saturday. In the field, Rich and I had no qualms about identifying it as a Yellow-legged Gull, although when initial research suggested the colour and code ('H8J0') was typical of a scheme on Heligoland, Germany, we began to worry. Surely if this was a Herring, it would be right back to the drawing board for juvenile gull identification?!

German-ringed Yellow-legged Gull 'H8J0'

Close-up of the darvic; use your imagination!

Thankfully, the idea that this bird was Herring (or even Lesser Black-backed) turned out to be as far-fetched as it seemed in the field on Sunday - this bird was pulli ringed as a michahellis in a colony in central Frankfurt on May 18th. Relief all round, and no need to throw any of our present understanding (and literature) in the bin! Here's the beef:

Thanks to Rich for getting on with the detective work; unfortunately my blog looks a bit of a clone of his at present, although he is off on holiday for a few weeks and thus I might actually have something to post that he doesn't.