Lamsdell Bird Ringing and Wildlife Blog: Scolt Head, mostly gulls

Friday, 26 June 2026

Scolt Head, mostly gulls - 25th June 2026

The best tide for returning to the island coincided with the second heatwave of the year. Thankfully there was a strong onshore breeze to bring the temperature down to a very comfortable 20 degrees.

We had 6 staff from Natural England and 4 ringers, with two NE staff that are training with Chris for restricted Cs for Oystercatchers, although the majority of recent hatchings have been predated early on in their development.

The first priority was to get the gazebo up for shade and prepare the keeping boxes. We have filled our Sandwich Tern quota so have no need to use a corral on this second visit. Our main priority was to attain just over the 100 for Black-headed Gulls and Mediterranean Gull. Two areas of the colony were targeted separately to limit the amount of time that birds were kept.

CL, DW & GD

Sandwich Tern

Med gull receiving a darvic ring

The tide was already receding at the end of the day. The onshore breeze and

fog bank in the distance kept the temperature low.

Total today- 148 (2)

Black-headed Gull - 27 ( plus 1 with metal only)
Mediterranean Gull - 88 (plus 11 with metal only) 2 with metal only last time given darvic rings)
Oystercatcher - 4 (plus 2 with metal only)
Sandwich Tern - 11

Total for Scolt Head colony 2026 - 494

Black-headed Gull - 106 (plus one with metal ring only)
Mediterranean Gull - 136 (plus 25 with metal only)

Sandwich Tern - 212 (plus 4 with metal only)

Also

Oystercatcher - 4 (plus 2 with metal ring only)

Hopefully there will be more survivors amongst the later nesters.

A big thank you to everyone involved in bringing this project to fruition. We already have a great deal of information from observations of birds ringed last year.

About us

Chris and Denise Lamsdell

We have both been birders for about 40 years based in South Bucks near the West London reservoir complexes.

Since September 2021 we have been based in North Norfolk. We have done our bit of twitching in the past, but with other priorities this has become a much reduced activity with a preference for seeing new birds where ever our travels take us.

We both have been ringing since 2005. Our local group was the Runnymede RG while based in Buckinghamshire. Since moving to Norfolk we have started a new group called The Iceni Bird Monitoring Group, aimed at increasing public engagement through colour ringing projects on Black-headed Gull, Turnstone and Lapwing. We ring at several sites including Sculthorpe Moor, Sandringham Estate, Deepdale Farm and also monitor bird populations for the Norfolk Rivers Trust. We do ringing at home and support with foreign projects when opportunities allow. Chris also has an interest in Butterflies and Dragonflies and contains his limited photographic skill to them.