Migrated to Portugal...

… and joined Pedro Moreira on a trip to the Eirol landfill to look for gull rings and some general birding. 3500 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 100 Yellow-legged Gulls, 40 Black-headed Gulls, 1 Audouin's gull, 541 White Storks and 8 Black Kites were present. 44 rings were read, all around the legs of LBBG’s.


1st year Audouin's gull Ichthyaetus audouinii




We also visited some of the salt pans near Aveiro to look for shorebirds. By now, many Dunlins and plovers have arrived from the north.


One Dunlin stood out from the crowd: a possible partially albino or leucistic individual. Pedro also noticed the same bird at the Salinas some time earlier.

A fresh start at the Eirol landfill near Aveiro, Portugal

Today, August 21 2013, during a morning visit to the Eirol landfill near Aveiro, Portugal, 36 gull-rings were read. The number of gulls was still relatively low, I suspect about 6500, including about 6100 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, 400 Yellow-legged Gulls and only a few Black-headed Gulls. The number of white storks was impressive: well over 1000 took off and left the site around noon.

 

The only colour-ringed Yellow-legged Gull observed today.

Probably the first recorded Audouin's Gull Ichthyaetus audouinii in Eirol

In between foraging trips, the birds sleep, take a bath, preen their feathers or read a magazine

Dirty, but readable ring. One of many from Paul Veron (Guernsey)

These are not gulls, but White Storks

Around noon it became too hot for me and the gulls. Only a few hundred were still present when I left the site.