Polish breeder, 2AAR, is back at Antrim!

I found myself in the Antrim area with an hour to spare on Friday afternoon, so I did what any respectable gull ringer would do...I bought a white pan loaf and headed to the Marina to check for colour-ringed gulls!

There were plenty of people already there feeding the swans and ducks, so it'd didn't take much effort to start noticing colour-ringed birds, especially when they're as obliging as 2ABS who walked over to the car looking for some scraps.

Managing to read 13 rings in under 20 minutes, I was pleased to see 2AAR had returned. Regular followers of the blog might remember that this is the bird which, having spent winter 2012-13 at Antrim, was re-sighting on breeding grounds in Poland (see here). Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, so here are some photos of 2AAR which Gareth took last winter.

 

 

Notice how scraggly and worn he appears when first seen in October (top photo), then how well he looks in December (middle photo), before developing his dark-headed breeding plumage in March (bottom photo).

Although this is only the second autumn of our colour-ringing study, we're starting to see how similar the return rates of some of the birds are. Now, it may just be coincidence, or it might be down to observers just not seeing the birds, but here are a couple of examples:

Bird	Last record 2012-13	First record 2013-14	Last record 2013-14	First record 2014-15
2AAC	12 Mar	3 Aug	2 Mar	3 Aug
2AAD	12 Mar	3 Aug	2 Mar	10 Aug
2AAP	31 Mar	6 Sept	16 Mar	24 Aug
2AAR	12 Mar	20 Oct	9 Mar	17 Oct
2ABC	12 Mar	3 Aug	16 Mar	31 Aug
2ABS	31 Mar	3 Sept	23 Mar	7 Sept

The last and first records of each winter will be one aspect of their ecology which we will be keeping an eye on over coming years to see if a trend is emerging.