Regular followers to our page may remember our gull ringing
project on Harewood Whin landfill site, on the outskirts of York near
Rufforth. During a three-year project nearly 2500 large gulls were cannon netted between March 2015 and March 2018, when the
landfill site finally closed. This was in part to explore the effects of the
closure of the site on the nationally important roost (of up to 40-50,000
gulls) at Wheldrake Ings, as well as establishing where ‘our’ gulls were coming
and going to.
Whilst it’s still early days, the number of Herring Gulls
last month at the Wheldrake roost has been very low – with just a couple of
hundred recorded compared to the 10-20,000 counted in previous
winters. We’ve also had fewer re-sightings of our colour-ringed birds in
Yorkshire, but a slight increase in sightings from landfill sites in Derbyshire
and Leicestershire – suggesting some of the birds have been displaced. We’ve also heard
of birds in Norway right down to Morocco – a 5000km radius of York, whilst one
of our Lesser Black-backed Gulls has been seen again, back in Malaga Harbour
for its third winter.
Many thanks to everyone who has sent in records of colour-ringed birds over the last few years - summary of the results so far to follow soon.
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