Ghostly Gulls

It seemed the spirit of Halloween was lingering, as a spooky, thick fog obscured all but the closest trees and the river. There was no wind and the dangling leaves of the willows trailed in the smooth flowing water like fingertips creating miniature ripples and whirlpools. Out of the white gloom came a brilliant flash of blue as a kingfisher shot down river and up into the lower branches of the willow, watching and waiting. The other birds of the river continue with their morning rituals, although it is already comparatively late in the day for them with the sun having been up for a few hours already. Ducks meander just past the old road bridge on whose worn stone you can still see the scars from tanks. Canada Geese preen themselves or feed on the grassy banks oblivious to the occasional car that appears briefly from the gloom. Overhead the harsh call of Carrion Crows and the cackle of Jackdaws echoes through the fog. Moorhens emerge from the reeds and sedge along the river’s edge with their characteristic bobbing head, circle a few times then disappear again. A family of Mute Swans, the two young still greyish brown, slowly patrol this small stretch of river. From the shrouded trees comes the twittering calls of various tits, Robins and Blackbirds, all heard but not seen.

Black-headed Gull (winter plumage)

Across the dark water stretches a footbridge, the clattering of puppy paws and footsteps its usual fare. But today it has a mist net covering its length, rising high above its barrier. The lure of food brings the ducks, swans and even the Moorhens closer to this bridge, and with them come the Black-headed Gulls. Brilliant white underneath, with silvery grey backs and bright orangey red legs and bill, they bounce effortlessly through the air like ghosts. Their heads are essentially white, with just a smudge of black behind a bright, black eye. Twisting and turning they spy the provisions, dropping down to pick at it from the water’s surface, watching as what is not gobbled by duck, goose or swan floats down river and under the bridge. The gulls flick up and over the bridge and one falls into the trap. The large mesh net is adept at holding the larger, longer winged gull until it is removed by experienced hands. 

And so there it is, in the hand, a small elegant Black-headed Gull. All ready for a metal ring, and in this case a colour ring to add to the project looking at gull movement from the region. We know birds are often moving between the UK and the continent especially Denmark and The Netherlands. But individuals have been found further afield including Senegal and Mauritania. So where will this bird go? Who knows but it will be easier for someone to report it since it has a colour ring which means it can be identified without being re-caught.

Ringed and colour ringed

It does not take long to process the bird. Unlike some of the larger gulls that take a number of years to replace all their juvenile feathers and look adult, Black-headed Gulls are will attain adult plumage when they are just over one year old. So at this time of year, there will either be first-winter birds (so birds hatched this summer) or adult winter birds. And so with that, and its colour ring, the bird is weighed and measured and then released quickly disappearing into the smokey fog. 

Catch of the Day

Dawn breaks over the cold beach at Great Yarmouth. The sun’s rays splintering between broken clouds, the lights of the sea front buildings twinkle in the remaining darkness that slowly fills with diffuse morning light. The sand shifts under foot as the group makes its way, laden with gear, to the tide line. Warm breath steaming in the cold air, slowly a large net is stretched out and then furled into a shallow trench in the sand. Canons are buried and the net attached. A long blue cable is wheeled out to a safe distance where a box with switches and buttons reminiscent of a space station sits in the sand. The group disperses to wait. Bait in the form of soaked bread is scattered into the catching area, with dry bits flung into the air in order to attract our quarry. Gulls. But not just any gulls, Mediterranean Gulls.

A beautiful adult Mediterranean Gull

Back in August 2012 a Wild Barley post called The Med in Norfolk discussed the sighting of colour ringed Mediterranean Gulls sighted from this very beach in Great Yarmouth. From such sightings we know that birds ringed in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany regularly cross the North Sea and spend the winter on our shores. But not all birds on the beach are colour ringed. What about the others? Are they all coming from these countries or from other locations throughout Europe? Do all the birds wintering in Great Yarmouth return to the same places? Now a group of ringers, and birders who regularly come to Great Yarmouth to read the rings of gulls on the beach, are embarking on a new project in order to find out.

The morning progresses; the sea front comes to life with dog walkers and workers making their way to offices, shops, cafes and bars throughout the town which at this time of year is sleepy and quiet. The birds sit in groups away down the beach, occasionally one shows a brief interest in our offering. We wait, and wait. Catching birds in this way, using a canon to fire a net over the top of the birds is not undertaken lightly. Ringers undergo rigorous and lengthy training in order to obtain this licence.

Suddenly there is a loud ‘bang’ and without even looking up the team starts sprinting across the sand to the birds now trapped under the net. Legs pumping, straining against the sand, the runners arrive (yes definitely out of breath) at the net, preventing birds from escaping and starting to remove them from beneath the mesh.

The canon net fires over the group of gulls trapping them beneath © David Pelling

Each bird is bagged, and then ringed with a uniquely numbered metal ring as well as a plastic alpha-numeric colour ring. The birds are aged, their wings measured and they are weighed before being released back along the beach.

A success! The catch has 13 new Mediterranean Gulls with a variety of different aged birds; adults with their clean grey backs, brilliant white wings, deep red bill and legs and smudge of black around the head; a second year bird with remnants of black in the wing feathers; and first year birds, those that have been born this year, with brown feathers scattered amongst the grey of the wings and back.

The three ages of Mediterranean Gull;
first year, second year and adult (left to right) © David Pelling

In addition to these there are three birds with rings on already, all of which herald from Belgium.

Once all the birds are processed and released, the net is set again, and after a cup of steaming hot chocolate to warm the cockles and the fingers, the wait begins again in the hope of a second catch. Almost at the point of accepting one catch for the day, the net is once again fired and once again the team races across the sand to collect the birds. A smaller catch this time, but still another two Mediterranean Gulls ringed and added to the total for this, the projects inaugural catch. 

Rubbish Ringing

The huge mound rose out of the hole in the Earth, a mountain not of rock or soil, but of rubbish. A huge compactor with spikes in the wheels and a massive bucket on the front beeped and revved as it moved piles of waste around the plateau at the top of the tip. Above hundreds upon hundreds of gulls circled, a swirling mass of grey and white, calling and screaming, peppered with the black shadows of crows and small flocks of starlings.

Dwarfed by the compactor and the other trucks on the tip, a white Landrover and trailer bounced and slid its way to a corner of the tip face and near to the sloping edge of the mound. On opening the door a sweet, sickly smell of rotten food and rubbish assaults the senses, but surprisingly you soon become immune only occasionally getting a strong whiff as the morning progresses.

The gulls and the tip

Amongst the piles of rubbish, seven intrepid ringers set a net. Not a fine mist net strung up between two poles, but a net lying on the ground and attached to rods which protrude from canons. Yes canons. On firing the canons fire the rods out taking the net with them, up and over the birds beneath.

With the net ready, we retreat and the compactor pushes over a load of fresh rubbish, laying it in front of the net. All there is left to do is wait, wait for the gulls to settle and feed, wait for the right time to fire the net, wait for the right kind of rubbish to come, and all the while trying not to think about what exactly it is your standing on. A continual stream of trucks brings fresh rubbish to the tip face, dumping their contents before the tractor and compactor spread it around. The minutes tick by, it gets colder, our feet and fingers go numb. With a fresh load spread out in front of us, finally there is interest. A moment later and a muted boom echoes out, the net had been fired. In an instance we go from waiting to action, scrambling up and over the piles of rubbish, towards the net beneath which are a hundred or so gulls.

With the gulls removed from under the net and placed into Hessian sacks, we could settle down (as settled as one can be on a rubbish tip) to process the catch.

First off a treat - a yellow-legged gull. Like lesser black-backed gulls and true to their name, yellow legged gulls have well yellow legs. In adults the back is a shade lighter than a lesser black-back and a shade darker than a herring gull. Capiche? There are of course other more subtle differences…

Adult yellow legged gull

Next there were 99 black-headed gulls, each one ringed with a uniquely numbered metal ring and a bright red and white colour ring. Small and dainty, black-headed gulls are easy to handle, and since they attain adult plumage after one breeding season they are relatively easy to age.

Then there were 70 lesser black-backed gulls. Bigger, meaner, with a bill that’ll draw blood if your not careful, and even if you are! Aging in larger gulls gets more tricky as they will go through four juvenile plumages before they reach the full adult plumage that we all recognise. Most, if not all the birds today were adults, with only one or two retaining the odd juvenile type feather. Again each one was ringed with a metal and a colour ring. Recapturing gulls is unusual, so in order to increase the sightings rate of these birds colour rings are added which can be read in the field without having to catch the bird again.

Lesser black-backed gull

After the lesser black-backed gulls we moved onto 19 herring gulls, this time with more juvenile birds and a range of ages, providing an excellent opportunity to see how the plumage varies.

The last bird of the day was a beast, they are not called great black-backed gull for no good reason. Not only are they larger overall and their back blacker, their bill is monstrous. With this bird you can’t even give it a chance to bite, do so and it may well snap a finger. Still never one to dodge a challenge, here I was with this adult bird lain across my lap, head safely tucked away beneath my arm, wrestling to put one of larger and harder rings in the BTO ringing scheme on its leg.

Me and the beast that is the great black-backed gull

So why, why stand in the cold on a smelly tip in the middle of February? Why run the risk of injury handling such big, mean birds? Landfill site may be stinky horrid places for us, where we hide our wastefulness underground, but for gulls they are the perfect place to feed and loaf during the winter. And they do so in vast numbers, providing the perfect opportunity to catch them in large numbers. By catching and colour ringing these birds we can find out where they move during the winter, where they breed and how this may vary between different species, ages and populations. It may surprise you but many of our large gull species are declining, and ringing is just one tool to help establish why.

One bird in particular during today’s catch highlighted this perfectly, a black-headed gull with a Lithuanian ring on. Hatched last year and in all likelihood ringed as chick in the breeding colony. Now here it was feeding on an English rubbish tip.

As they say… It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it….

Black-headed gull with a Lithuanian ring on,
we then added the colour ring