Ring-legged Gulls

Before the Larid lovers spring to their favourite internet site to check they haven’t missed out on a new ‘armchair tick’, or start bashing their keyboards in warrior style, to berate my ignorance to tell me there is no such thing as Ring-legged Gull, chill guys (and it will be a male troll) cool your jets. We are talking gulls with rings (or bands) on their legs, specifically Darvic type colour rings.

Colour rings with coding on, readable in the field, are a fantastic way to gather excellent data through citizen science. Pre their usage, the traditional metal ring inscription that a bird ringer/bander would place on a bird’s leg was really only readable once the bird had been recaptured, or found dead. If you were lucky, you got two fragments of the bird’s life, where it was ringed and where it met its demise and sometimes how it died.

A few days ago, I photographed a handful of colour ringed Black-headed Gulls Chroicocephalus ridibundus at Spike Island in Widnes (North-West England). I input the species, colour and codes of the rings, plus location and date into the European Colour-ring Birding website and immediately got feedback regarding the known movements of these birds.

Black-headed Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus, 260F, Spike island, Widnes, England 8th Jan 2024 © Jeff Clarke

One of them, 260F, had previously been recorded in Riga, Latvia. Birds are one of the best examples of how our Earth’s ecosystem is completely intertwined and connected. Perhaps we should base our town-twinning on known bird movements.

Widnes twinned with Riga. Cool.

 Colour ringed Black headed Gulls at Spike island 8th Jan 2024 © Jeff Clarke

Why not try it next time you see a colour ringed bird. We’ll all learn something.