Catches

Pitsea - 28/01/2012: A great day. What looked like a difficult set turned out to be fine as there was little lorry movement and firing towards the road was not a problem. Two catches and the first in the bag for Dave Dutton. Very little of interest on the tip but the final total of 421 birds and 90 large gulls color ringed.

Catch 1

Species Ringed Retraps Controls Colour ringed
Black-headed Gull 60 0 0 0
Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 0 0 1
Herring Gull 218 2 1 58
Great Black-backed Gull 27 0 0 26
Catch totals 306 2 1 85

Catch 2

Species Ringed Retraps Controls Colour ringed
Black-headed Gull 36 0 0 0
Herring Gull 70 0 0 0
Great Black-backed Gull 4 1 1 5
Catch totals 110 1 1 5
Trip totals 416 3 2 90

Pitsea - 14/01/2012: The first session of 2012 was rather difficult. Birds were very jumpy and did not want to settle. Safety issues and a single Great Black-backed Gull caused problems once the air traffic had cleared and severl lifts of all the birds meant a frustrating couple of hours wait before a catch could be taken. Fantastic work by the compactor drivers also secured a catch and without their hard work we would have drawn our first blank. Final total of 276 was very good given the circumstances.

Species Ringed Retraps Controls Colour ringed
Black-headed Gull 68 2 1 0
Common Gull 1 0 0 1
Herring Gull 187 1 2 97
Great Black-backed Gull 14 0 0 14
Catch totals 270 3 3 112

Rainham - 17/12/2011: A fantastic way to end the year with a really nice catch of 260 birds of which again only 7 were Black-headed. We appear to have lost the ability to catch this species but with 129 large gulls colour ringed the value of the catch was fantastic. Mostly Herring Gulls and the wet conditions making a few birds a little dirty gave some interesing ID issues! However, KHD did well to pick out another Caspian much to the delight of BW. Two Yellow-legs and a nice sample of 25 Great Black-backs is an excellent total for Rainham. A really good team effort with a tricky shower in the middle of processing and again great work from the tip staff saw an excellent end to 2011.

Species Ringed Retraps Controls Colour ringed
Black-headed Gull 7 0 0 0
Yellow-legged Gull 2 0 0 2
Caspian Gull 1 0 0 1
Herring Gull 222 2 1 102
Great Black-backed Gull 25 0 0 25
Catch totals 257 2 1 130

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Methods

The North Thames Gull Group catches gulls using a cannon net, which involves firing a large net over birds feeding on freshly spread rubbish.

Once the net is set and the cannons connected, a load of rubbish is dumped and a waste compactor vehicle spreads it out and withdraws from the catching area. When enough gulls are in the area and it is safe to do so, the net is fired.

The team of ringers then removes the gulls from under the net and temporarily places them in hessian sacks which are stored in a holding area for processing. Birds are then identified to species, aged and fitted with an uniquely numbered metal ring. Measurements may be taken to help identify the race or breeding population of the birds we are catching.

Starting in 2008 we have also started fitting colour rings (orange rings with black letters and numbers) which allows the birds to be relocated without needing to be recaptured. There are many more bird-watchers looking for colour-ringed gulls, than there are cannon netting teams, so this greatly improves our chances of understanding the movements of the birds from the Thames Estuary.

If you see a bird with one of our colour rings, please send details (ring-code, date, location, species) to

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Totals

2012 calendar year

Species Ringed Retraps Controls Colour ringed
Black-headed Gull 164 2 1 0
Common Gull 1 0 0 1
Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 0 0 1
Herring Gull 475 3 3 155
Great Black-backed Gull 45 1 1 45
Totals 686 6 5 202

2011/12 winter

Species Ringed Retraps Controls Colour ringed
Black-headed Gull 482 4 3 0
Common Gull 4 0 0 4
Lesser Black-backed Gull 127 2 3 130
Yellow-legged Gull 25 0 0 25
Caspian Gull 3 0 0 3
Herring Gull 1602 15 8 473
Great Black-backed Gull 239 1 3 140
Totals 2482 22 17 775

2011 calendar year

Species Ringed Retraps Controls Colour ringed
Mediterranean Gull 5 0 1 6
Black-headed Gull 1765 11 11 0
Common Gull 18 0 0 3
Lesser Black-backed Gull 244 2 7 250
Yellow-legged Gull 28 0 0 28
Caspian Gull 3 0 0 3
Herring Gull 1617 19 8 606
Great Black-backed Gull 280 1 4 181
Totals 3960 33 31 1077

2010/11 winter

Species Ringed Retraps Controls Colour ringed
Mediterranean Gull 6 0 1 7
Black-headed Gull 2265 19 14 0
Common Gull 29 0 0 0
Lesser Black-backed Gull 213 0 7 219
Yellow-legged Gull 4 0 0 4
Herring Gull 1024 9 9 761
Great Black-backed Gull 125 1 2 124
Totals 3666 29 33 1115

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