Sunday 12 February 2012

Rugby or Gulls?

Had a bit of a marathon ringing day today. Started with a session with Terry at Radipole along with Derek and rare visitor Emma who used to live on Portland but now lives somewhere near London? The morning went well with 4 Coot, 4 Tufted Duck and a Herring Gull.  The Herring Gull was colour ringed and was re-sighted a whole 4 hours later near the visitor centre at Radipole. Once our hands were frozen solid and scratched by the lovely friendly Coots, Emma talked me into going along to breakfast. After a brief discussion we decided we’d concentrate on Herring Gulls in the afternoon. I had three colour rings left in my ringing box so we thought it would be good to use them up.
A search around town trying to find some cheap bread came up trumps in Tesco express. 47p a loaf isn’t bad when it’s for gulls! To our surprise Iceland was far more expensive. This Iceland Gull (taken ages ago in Wales) clearly is more interested in Tesco.

After a few hours,  5 more Herring Gull were caught including some lovely adults which were well into their breeding plumage. I also managed to grab a Black-headed Gull for good measure. A good afternoon which was made better when the news came through of Wales win in the six nations, though I am doubting my loyalty to my home nations rugby team. Couldn’t believe that I went with gull ringing instead of watching Rugby but glad I did.

3 comments:

  1. Luke! Gulls over rugby! You've been in Lloeger far too long!

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  2. at least you had the choice mate, I've had to work both weekends of the 6 nations so far and I'm work in a fortnight too!! I will have to get down to you some time to have a go at the gull catching!

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  3. It wasn't as if it was going to be a close exciting match... To make things worse though I went to an English pub to watch the English match. Got some funny looks when I cheered Italies try! By the way Paul, I think I was with you when I took that Iceland Gull picture. It was from Port Talbot when that glauc was there as well.

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