Rainham Tip - 11 Dec 2010

A trip out with the North Thames Gull Group, this time to Rainham tip to target Lesser Black-backed Gulls. There was quite a large group ringers present, including three colleagues from the Runnymede RG, together with Malcolm Wilson from Africa, with Jez Blackbird being master of ceremonies for the day. A more compact refuse tip brought two quite successful catches, with a good number gulls being caught, including a number of the sought after Lessers, along with a single adult Yellow-legged Gull. Three Starlings were also caught feeding amongst the pile of left overs from the many black bin bags. Thankfully re-cycling is not as yet 100% successful! Totals for the day were:

Black-headed Gull				210 plus 2 controls
Common Gull				5
Herring Gull				188 plus 2 controls and 1 re-trap
Lesser Black-backed Gull				54 plus 2 controls
Greater Black-backed Gull				5
Yellow-legged Gull				1
Starling				3

Tip face and setting up

Catch taken

 

Common Gull - sub-adult

 Herring Gull - adult


Lesser Black-backed Gull - adult (above and below)

Yellow-legged Gull - adult (above & below)

  

Whilst some of us were at the tip, the Wraysbury team from the RRG had a session at Chobham Common and using a slightly different location managed an improved catch of around 40 Lesser Redpoll, with no Commons being caught this time. They did catch this leucistic individual.

Lesser Redpoll (Andrew Kingston)