A visit to Le Portel

This week, on our national holiday, I made a visit to Le Portel to read rings of MedGulls. I only went there in winter before, so I didn't knew what to expect (but since MedGulls are flying south at this time of year I was hoping for many rings). At first it looked a bit disappointing, but when the tide was low and the mussels where accessible, it was madness :-) 100's of gulls where present, and easy to approach. In the end, I read 149 rings, of the following species: 6 Herrings (5 French birds, one from the UK), 4 Greater black-backed gulls (3 from Norway, 1 from France), 3 Black-headed gulls (all locally-ringed birds), and 136 MedGulls (mainly Belgian and French birds, but also 8 from Poland, 7 from Hungary, and my first ever Serbian ring!). All in all a very nice day (my highest number of rings read in one day so far), and I will probably go back there later this summer :-)

I mainly concentrated on ring-reading, so did'nt take many pictures. A few of them can be found below.

A small flock of gulls resting on the beach of Le Portel.

Gull madness!

MedGull white 34J5.

MedGull green R11N, a French bird.

MedGull red PJU7, a Polish one.

MedGull red HFN2, one of the Hungarian birds.

MedGulls in flight.

White A6GV, a British Herring.

Herring VU A, one of the French birds.