Yellow legs and Black heads in Switzerland

We recently received a partial ring-read of a Black-headed Gull in Switzerland which did look to be a BTO-ringed bird, so definitely one worth chasing up! A few emails later and a week after first seeing the bird at Morges, Franck Lehmans was able to read the ring again and get the full number (EX70855); a bird ringed as an adult at Pitsea Landfill Site in October 2012.

This is only the second report of a British-ringed Black-headed Gull in Switzerland, following a bird ringed as a chick in Essex in 1999 and seen in December that year. The map below shows all movements of Black-headed Gulls to/from Britain & Ireland, from the Online Ringing Report.

Franck has a bit of a track record finding North Thames Gull Group birds: in April/May 2014 he reported a Yellow-legged Gull (Orange YY5T) originally ringed at Rainham Tip in February 2014. This bird also has an interesting history, being seen just five days after ringing in France, before moving on to Switzerland.

Wanderings of Orange YY5T

To top the story, in the same week that Franck was watching the Pitsea Black-headed Gull in Switzerland, the Yellow-legged Gull he'd seen in the spring was back at Pitsea, photographed by Richard Bonser (check out his excellent blog here)!

Orange YY5T at Pitsea Landfill on 29th November (c) Richard Bonser

Many thanks to North Thames Gull Group for sending on the details of these birds and for letting us use the map from their excellent website.

Sanderling update

You may remember that we posted a story on the Demog Blog recently regarding a Sanderling that was caught by the Wash Wader Ringing Group wearing a ring from the Switzerland Ringing Scheme. Click here if you missed it.

As Switzerland doesn't have any shoreline we thought that this bird could have been ringed in an African country, which doesn't have it's own ringing scheme and therefore might have used Swiss rings, but we were wrong. This bird was in fact ringed in Switzerland. Not only that but out of a group of 40 birds seen flying over, only two were caught and ringed. The ringing location however is quite amazing. These birds were ringed at Col de Bretolet Ringing Station high in the Swiss Alps!

During foggy conditions these birds were migrating over the Alps when they came low enough for the mist nets. These birds represent the highest attitudinal record for this species in Switzerland, and probably the highest Sanderling ever ringed, at 1925m above sea level.

Mist nets are set from August to November to catch migrating birds. This year a total of 16,456 birds were ringed from 94 species, with the main species being Chaffinch, Robin, Pied Flycatcher, Siskin and Willow Warbler.

Thanks to our colleagues in Switzerland, and to Jacquie Clark for the photos of the Col de Bretolet Ringing Station.