Colour-marked Black-headed Gull (1 Viewer)

Adey Baker · Dec 27, 2003

It's always worth checking through flocks of gulls for anything interesting and this morning Carl Baggott and I found this bright orange Black-headed Gull in the middle of a couple of hundred other gulls at Huncote, Leics on a 'capped' rubbish tip.

Despite the fact that the larger leg-tag is numbered it's not easy to read - a plea to all ringers in these situations: Please use high-contrast colouring, i.e. black on white!

Carl has got a sharper image than mine on the leg and may be able to read the number by using the contrast tools in PS - if so we'll be able to trace where it was grabbed and 'painted!'

christineredgate · Dec 27, 2003

Adey,are you saying that someone has actually painted the front of that bird,if he is an ordinary Gull,why should anyone want to ring him and what is more "paint " him.Does this mean he could have come from far afield?
Christine.

Bluetail · Dec 27, 2003

I thought the point of colour-coding gulls was to obviate the need to read the ring?

Jason

christineredgate · Dec 27, 2003

So is painting the fronts of birds a regular occurrence.I have never heard of it until now?.Is it not a little unfair to be covering the front of the bird with paint?.
Christine.

Bluetail · Dec 27, 2003

Christine, it's not paint, but a harmless dye. (Dye does not clog the feathers like paint would.) It's a fairly regular way of marking gulls. It's obviously easier to report a colour-marked gull than it is to read the ring, so the birds' movements are likely to be better recorded.

Jason

christineredgate · Dec 27, 2003

Thanks again,Jason,that sounds a lot better than paint,and yes,I can see why they can be easier to identify ,also it would save recapturing the bird if it's ring was difficult to read.
Christine.

Adey Baker · Dec 27, 2003

Sorry, I put paint in inverted commas, but obviously it's not 'paint' as such!

The colouring will tell where the scheme was carried out (unless there are several similar schemes in operation) but the ring number will give exact time and date and enable the individual to be tracked if it's reported from several sites.

Neil Hagley · Dec 27, 2003

colour dyeing & colour ringing

Adey Baker said:
It's always worth checking through flocks of gulls for anything interesting and this morning Carl Baggott and I found this bright orange Black-headed Gull in the middle of a couple of hundred other gulls at Huncote, Leics on a 'capped' rubbish tip.

Despite the fact that the larger leg-tag is numbered it's not easy to read - a plea to all ringers in these situations: Please use high-contrast colouring, i.e. black on white!

Carl has got a sharper image than mine on the leg and may be able to read the number by using the contrast tools in PS - if so we'll be able to trace where it was grabbed and 'painted!'

Adey:- On the basis that the dye spraying is in addition to colour ringing might I suggest that you 'work back' by checking out this link. http://www.cr-birding.be/ then choose the Gulls/Black Headed Gull option. I seem to remember reading about a dye scheme for BHH but can't just recall where. If you can work out the colour combination (either from Carl's image or a better view next time) you will see the site has several schemes indexed by colours & combinations, many with e-mail contacts.
Hope this may help
best
Neil Hagley

Stephen Dunstan · Dec 27, 2003

Adey,

I think most people with a ringing scheme would want to use high contrast characters, when they don't it is usually because someone got there first. In terms of black writing on a white Darvic BHGs from two different schemes (in Finland and Denmark) have turned up on two of my local patches. Don't know about white on black, the site Neil mentions will give this info.

Stephen.

Michael Frankis · Dec 27, 2003

Part of the problem with dying is that there's only a very limited range of colours available that are reliably harmless to birds, waterproof, long-lasting (won't fade), and readily distinguishable in the field. So it is very difficult to base a coding scheme only around dyes.

With black dye it is possible to number birds individually:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~wolf0977/marked.html
but as pointed out there, that only lasts about a month or less before fading; the yellow dye on the Black-headed Gull above, numbering wouldn't be very visible, but the dye is much more long-lasting and should remain visible until the bird moults (that in itself, another factor that limits the value: it can never last as long as a leg ring).

Michael

Adey Baker · Dec 27, 2003

Thanks for info above.

I'm just waiting to see if Carl's got anything on the leg number

I've attached a shot of the bird with the contrast and sharpness boosted on the leg but it's just not clear enough - looks like perhaps 'J5' or something. I was hand-holding the camera but Carl's was mounted to the scope and his camera certainly works better at a longer distance than mine.

I think it's definitely worth considering high-contrast numbering nowadays - with a good digiscoped image you can get ring numbers over much greater distances than just viewing them thro' the scope.

Stephen Dunstan · Dec 27, 2003

I hadn't appreciated the ring was red, assumed it was the same colour as the dye. I had one from Thorne Moor or somewhere near there which was on this side of the country last winter. That was red with a white code, it was tricky and I had to play the video on my telly to clinch the sequence.

Stephen.

Michael Frankis · Dec 27, 2003

Hi Adey,

On the idea of using greater colour contrast - I'm sure they would if they could. But there's enough people doing enough separate studies, that they have to agree each to use different colours so as not to get schemes mixed up. Someone else has almost certainly already used black on white, so no-one else can until all his birds have died of old age (which might be 30 years for a long-lived bird like a gull!) (though the rings probably don't last that long)

One value of the dye - it makes spotting the ringed birds in the flock a lot easier! In a big flock, say 10,000 gulls, that's a major help.

Michael

Stephen Dunstan · Dec 27, 2003

Michael,

I agree - see above! :king:

Stephen.

Adey Baker · Dec 27, 2003

You're right on that last point, Michael - we were only checking for something interesting amongst the bigger birds so the dye certainly did the job of attracting our attention!

Adey

Michael Frankis · Dec 27, 2003

Stephen Dunstan said:
Michael,

I agree - see above! :king:

Stephen.

Hi Stephen,

Sorry, don't know how I missed seeing your post!

Michael

Colin · Dec 27, 2003

Adey,
You are probably aware of this but even if you cannot get a reading from your pictures it may be worth contacting Tommy Pedersen in Denmark whose email should be in the colour ringing website already mentioned. He does coordinate the sightings of the smaller gulls and, for information Peter Rock in Bristol does likewise with the larger gulls, unless the ring colour and characters can be definitely attributed to a scheme in that website.

Bubbs · Dec 27, 2003

Adey Baker said:
It's always worth checking through flocks of gulls for anything interesting and this morning Carl Baggott and I found this bright orange Black-headed Gull in the middle of a couple of hundred other gulls at Huncote, Leics on a 'capped' rubbish tip.

Hope this is of interest: Andy Baxter is colour marking (harmless picric dye) Black-headed Gulls, at landfill sites to the north of London.

A Black-headed Gull was also seen with orange secondaries (left wing) in France about three weeks ago.

John Barclay.

Carl Baggott · Dec 28, 2003

If it is helpful the reddish pink ring appears to read 2525. The numbers appear to be coloured off white. Hopefully there is not another sequence on the opposite side of the ring, which can not be seen in my photograph.

Carl Baggott · Dec 29, 2003

Below is a conclusion to the requests for information on this colour dyed Black-headed Gull made by Adey Baker and myself. The request for information was circulated to the correct person by the cr-birding website suggested by Neil Hagley. Thanks to all those who helped!

Dear Carl,

Many thanks for sending this sighting in. The bird you have seen was
ringed as an adult black-headed gull on the 12th November 2003 at
Wapseys wood landfill site, Gerrards Cross, Bucks (SU9589) (10 miles
north west of heathrow). (Metal ring no EP37640). The colour ring was
actually 2S25. The bird has been ringed as part of a study looking at
the movements of gulls between landfill sites and other feeding /
roosting sites in the local area but it is useful to know which bird
have moved away from this zone. Yours is the first sighting of this bird.

Colour-marked Black-headed Gull (1 Viewer)

Member

Attachments

Winner of the Copeland Wildlife Photographer of th

Senior Moment

Winner of the Copeland Wildlife Photographer of th

Senior Moment

Winner of the Copeland Wildlife Photographer of th

Member

Well-known member

Registered User

conehead

Member

Attachments

Registered User

conehead

Registered User

Member

conehead

Axeman (Retired)

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Similar threads

Users who are viewing this thread