Common Gull ringed when the Queen was 10 weeks old

Thanks to the Euring reporting website that non-ringers use to report ringed birds, we receive an average of 90 reports of BTO ringed birds per week. This number doesn't include recoveries by letter and ringers catching ringed birds of course. Most of the reports are of recently dead birds but there is a very small percentage of rings that have been found using metal detectors.

The ringing details of these birds take more time to find, as these birds have usually been dead for some time but well worth the effort. One report recently was of a ring that was found on 04 November 2012 at Green Ore, Wells, Somerset by John Durnell. As soon as we read that the ring also had Whitherby, High Holborn, London on the ring we realised how old this ring was.

Ringing in this country first started in 1909 but this ring was placed on a 1st year Common Gull on 3 July 1926 at Ard na Cailc, Dornoch Firth, Highlands! This was a distance of 738km in 31,537 days between ringing and finding (although the bird was dead for most of this). Amazingly ony 28 Common Gulls were ringed in 1926 compared with 716 last year.

Thanks to John Durnell for letting us know and for supplying the photos.