Herring gulls and Oystercatcher

Today, a short stop in Nieuwpoort resulted in 4 ring-readings: 3 Belgian Herring gulls (1 new) and 1 Dutch Oystercatcher (the bird I also saw there in October).

Herring gull blue Y.UAD (E Stienen), my second observation of this bird, which was ringed in August last year as 1st year bird.

Herring gull blue M.TAB (E Stienen, this picture is from 2010 - today it was too far off to be photographed), my 6th observation of this gull, it was ringed as a chick in 2009.

Oystercatcher LAM;LBRW(T);RAN;RBWN(C) (Netherlands), also my second observation. This bird was ringed in 2010.

Crows in Brussels

Today I got the chance to spend some time in a city parc in Brussels, resulting in the reading of 10 c-ringed Carrion crows. These birds are all ringed somewhere in Brussels (I am waiting for the details), with white or yellow rings with 2 codes. No pictures today (I didn't take my camera since I didn't know how easy it would be te read rings), that's something for the next time there...

Local twitching

Today I went to see some local scarce birds: a female Eider was a good inland bird (present since yesterday), and 6 Bewick's swans were a good bonus. The last week of 2012, I saw about 200 of these swans in the north of Belgium, where they are a common winter bird. Among them were 3 Whooper swans, of which I put a picture below too.

Female Eider, nice inland bird.

3 of the 6 Bewick's swans present in my region.

Whooper swan, Krekengebied NO-Vlaanderen, december 2012.

Boulogne

Yesterday I visited the area of Boulogne-sur-Mer to Calais, in the hope of reading some rings of Mediterranean gulls. It started slwoly, but at the end of the day I ended up with exactly 50 rings, from the following species: Mediterranean gull: 39 (mostly Belgian and French birds, also 1 from Poland and Hungary); Herring gull: 6 (3 Dutch, 2 Belgian, 1 British); Black-headed gull: 3 (1 French, Danish and Polish); Greater black-backed gull: 2 (Norwegian and French). The focus was on reading rings, but I managed to get some pictures too, as can be seen below. Hundreds of large gulls were present at Le Portel, but as always they were very wary and flew off all the time...

Mediterranean gull white E644 on the beach of Le Portel.

Herring gull yellow 5W (RJ Buijs), always seen at the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer.

Herring gull white A7JG (R Thompson), a beautiful bird.

Herring gull white F.4 (RJ Buijs), on the beach of Le Portel.

Herring gull blue YUA.C (E Stienen), always nice to see one of our Belgian birds abroad!

Greater black-backed gull black 75L (G Le Guillou), most likely a bird from Le Havre. This is only my 3rd bird from this project.

Some pictures from last year

Another short post, this one with some of the (few) rings I read the past months. I hope to be able to read more rings in the coming months, hopefully with some nice pictures. In the meantime, some older pictures:

Egyptian goose green X, ringed and seen in Brussels.

Mute swan white C55, seen in Chassepierre in autumn 2011.

Cormorant green H I 1, a Dutch bird seen in Nieuwpoort last summer.

Another Cormorant, red 5SE this time, a Danish bird, also seen last summer.

A Dutch Oystercatcher, seen last autumn in Nieuwpoort.

Norwegian Black-headed gull white J9Y1, also seen in Nieuwpoort last autumn.

And finally 1st cal Herring gull blue Y.UAD (E. Stienen), seen in August in Nieuwpoort.