Hungry Black-headed Gull

The British and Irish Ringing Scheme ringed 5,783 Black-headed Gulls last year. A large proportion of these are also colour ringed, improving the information we can gather about their demography and movements. The map below shows where our Black-headed Gulls have been recorded in the past (BTO-ringed birds are shown in purple and foreign-ringed birds in yellow).

We regularly receive reports of these gulls from our colleagues in other ringing schemes and via our own ringers and ring-readers. There is a long list of countries on the online report that shows where Black-headed Gulls have been seen/found, and we now need to add a new one.

An adult Black-Headed Gull seen last Thursday (24th July) at Gibraltar Point Bird Observatory, Lincolnshire, was wearing colour ring Red HF0R, and had been ringed on 9th March 2014 at Sopron Landfill Site, Hungary (1,299km from Gib Point).

Black-headed Gulls can live to over 29 years old, so these colour-ringed birds can accumulate lots of sightings during their life time.