Westkapelle autumn 2010

[Albert de Jong]

Theo Muusse and I checked Westkapelle this morning. Not many gulls on the dike, but we spend our time with reading rings. A ringed HG from the UK and a Danish bird. Also several metal Belgian HGs and some Dutch LBBGs. We also had two juvenile YLGs which reacted very well on our feeding activities. In 't Vroon, just behind the dike of Westkapelle, we had some hundreds of resting LBBG. Almost all adults and a handfull with rings. This group included four YLGs.

As promised , here are some pics of the two juvenile YLGs, Theo. I 'll send you more by e-mail.

[Albert de Jong]

Today two juvenile YLGs at Westkapelle, many ringed HGs from the neighbourhood (they are on the move, the colonies are almost empty) and some variety by this GBBG black JM45.
And this one of the present YLGs was as huge as a GBBG!

[Theo Muusse]

To show its large size, see the battle with a gbbg on the left.
3cy mich from de Brouwersdam, a few islands up north.

Theo

[Albert de Jong]

This morning Theo and I spend some hours at the dike. Many candid HG juveniles, as you can see here below. Some juvenile HGs have molted half of the scaps already, others have done nothing yet. This bird (pic 2,3) seems a bit strange due to the plain tertials en inner hand. The 'h' word or just whitin the range? The 3cy YLG (pic 4) was still present on the Brouwersdam and has now lost some outer secondaries and p9-10 while p8 is still growing.

[JanJ]

Nice pic. Albert.
Regarding the Herring and it´s inner primarieas and tertials, the inner primaries looks a bit washed - whith sharply contrasting dark tips but I wouldn´t worry to much about that. The same goes for the terial pattern.
Plenty of variation in 1st cycle Herring.

Inner primaries to compare with

http://waarneming.nl/fotonew/9/909079.jpg

Tertial patern in one individual:

http://waarneming.nl/fotonew/9/407119.jpg

A selection of finnish argentatus in July:

http://www.elisanet.fi/hj.koskinen/1wargTara_July.html

and in January:

http://www.elisanet.fi/hj.koskinen/1w_a ... nuary.html

JanJ

[Theo Muusse]

Again, today saw 1000s of gulls coming in with the trawlers, resulting in many rings.
Here are a few.

Theo

[marsmuusse]

Nice images little brother! This explains why it was so quite at IJmuiden today. Birds fourage further south in the NorthSea. I had a yellow ring as well today, but not starting with 'H'. It was a Finnish 'C'.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=351

[Theo Muusse]

Today for a quick visit on the Westkapelle dike.
It was nice to finally greet the cachinnans. The first day with more than a single, there were even 4.
Together with a 6-7 micha, the 600 gulls present proved to be promising for the next days.

Theo

[Theo Muusse]

Due to an overload of shearwaters, gulls were on second span today.
Only a 3 local new rings could be read from the seawatch-steakout.
Large movements of intermedius and marinus were noted though.

Theo

[Theo Muusse]

Today, again the thursday, fireworks on the dike.
1000s of large gulls, most herring (2500) and lbbg (1500), but also a 49 micha and 11 cach.
These are good numbers for here.
Rings included 3 cachinnans, 1 michahellis and an odd Guernsey ring, the second ever for Holland.
Also, Denmark, Norway and Sweden were present.
Here a few first shots.

Theo