From New Scientist Gulls tucking in to discarded food or flocking around landfills has become a familiar sight. Now data from the Pacific north-west of Canada spanning 149 years has shown that substituting fish with less nutritious food is linked to population declines and lower fertility in glaucous-winged gulls (Larus glaucescens) a close relative of the herring and lesser black-backed gull. Louise Blight from the University of British Columbia and her colleagues looked at 270 gulls’ feather samples from museums, taken […]

The first of the Great Black backed Gulls ringed on Looe Island that went to Spain has returned to the island. The bird was ringed on the 13th June 2010 and was seen in north west Spain in 2011 and 2012. Assistant Warden Claire Lewis recorded the bird (which is identifiable by the numbered ring on its leg, L:AH1) back on Looe Island on 25th April 2014. Although cross channel movements are quite common this is thye first time a […]

Photo by Sue Sayer, Cornwall Seal Group http://www.cornwallsealgroup.co.uk/ A Great black-backed Gull ringed as a chick on Guernsey  in June 2010 has been sighted on Looe Island and may possibly breed here this season. If so it may well be the first recorded instance of breeding emigration of a Great Black back from Guernsey to England. The bird was sighted at Downderry in September 2010 and was seen several times at Looe in 2012 and 2013. Identified by the inscribed […]

Mark Grantham has put the following post on his west Cornwall Ringing Group blog. Tony Blunden took the photos. ”The last couple of weeks have seen large numbers of Great Black-backed Gulls (and the odd Iceland and Glaucous Gull, and even a smart Kumlien’s Gull!) gathering on the reef at Lizard Point. There seems to be an endless stream of colour-ringed birds in amongst them as well, with birds from as diverse places as Norway, Wales, Channel Islands and France! […]

Happy New year everyone! One of the Great Black-backed Gull chicks ringed on Looe Island on 24/06/13 has been sighted in Spain. L:BB9 was reported on 29/12/13 at Nemiña beach, Muxía, A Coruña NW Spain (43.00N – 9.16W). This is a movement of 893km and is only the 2nd bird from the Looe project recorded in Spain. With all this horrible weather many gulls are seeking sanctuary in sheltered bays, estuaries and harbours. There have been many recent sightings in Looe […]

The Great Black backs on Looe Island, along with many other species last summer, had a poor breeding season. Although we counted 75 nests containing 197 eggs and two chicks in May, when it came to ringing we were only able to find 27 chicks of which 24 were colour ringed. This compares to 91 colour ringed in 2011 and 49 in 2010. It is not known whether failures occurred during incubation or nestling stages but we suspect that many […]

Looe Island is a Cornwall Wildlife Trust reserve off Looe in south-east Cornwall. It holds what is now the largest breeding colony of Great Black-backed Gulls with 78 pairs in 2012, 66 pairs in 2011 and 79 pairs in 2010. Historically, Mullion Island, off the Lizard held the largest colony. This was certainly true in the mid 1980s when the Seabird Colony Register noted 117 pairs. However, by Seabird 2000, the last complete national survey, numbers had dropped to 49 […]

The recent sighting in Spain of a Great Black-backed Gull with its tongue poking through a hole in its throat [ hence the title!] prompted me to investigate further. It appears that this is not a one off. Antonio Gutierrez sent me a selection of photos of different species with a similar condition. On Flicker theres a photo of a Glaucous Gull with the same thing. Paul Veron in Guernsey has also witnessed it. So what is going on? Is […]

We’ve had our first sighting in Spain! L:AH1 was the first bird I ringed on 13th June last year. It was seen on Carreiro Beach, San Xenxo, Pontevedra, NW Spain on 26th October 2011, over 938 km from Looe Island, where it was ringed. Unfortunately it had suffered an injury to its throat which caused its tongue to poke through.

Paul Veron in Guernsey emailed me this morning with another report of one of our gulls in Guernsey. L:AJ8 was ringed on 27 June 2010 on St George’s Island and sighted this morning at Fort le Crocq, near Richmond. Pauls Photos are featured here.