French and British LBBG in Gent!

This afternoon, during a short break, I checked a few places in Gent to see if there were any c-ringed LBBG's present. To my surprise, I soon found a bird with a large red ring, which turned out to be one of Philippe Dubois' birds. This is my first French bird in Gent! After this, I also saw a metal-ringed bird, which I unfortunately could not read entirely. However, I could read "London" (and 4 letters too), so this was a British bird, also a first for me in Gent... Also 2 birds from Roland-Jan Buijs his project, including 1 new one.

LBBG red 254N (P. Dubois), my first French bird in Gent. These rings are not the easiest to read...

LBBG blue 1N (RJ Buijs), my first observation this year (I saw this bird 3 times last spring).

LBBG red VH (RJ Buijs), a new bird to me.

Back again!

After several weeks without ring-reading I finally found some time again to look for some c-ringed gulls. I went to the harbour of Oostende, where I ran into Davy Bosman, who was checking some of the nests he is studying. I could join him and visit the roof-breeding colony, great to see these birds there (and also some of the first freshly-ringed chicks)! After this I tried to find some more rings, and managed to get 18 ringed birds in total, all from Belgium (12 c-rings and 6 metal rings), and quite a few of them new birds for me. The breeding LBBG's looked very nice, good to be back at the c-rings :-)

ad Herring gull blue AVAK (E. Stienen), this one apparently was in rather poor condition. It was ringed as a chick in 1999.

ad Herring gull blue MWA.Z (E. Stienen), near it's nesting site.

4th cal Herring gull blue CLA.V (E. Stienen).

ad LBBG blue HYA.F (E. Stienen).

ad LBBG blue GSA.B (E. Stienen).

ad LBBG blue DNA.N (E. Stienen).