A look around Bracelet Bay on Sunday turned up at least twenty Mediterranean Gulls split between their usual piece of roadside grass and the beach below. As always I studied each one to see if any were ringed and found three that were. The first was a juvenile bird (Green 3T9) which was ringed as a chick this year at Barbâtre in Western France.

25038 - Mediterranean Gull (3T9), Bracelet Bay

Next up was White 3K80, hatched in Belgium in 2006. The second photo of this bird gives an excellent comparison with the similar but far more numerous Black Headed Gull. Key identifying features are a thicker blood red beak on the Mediterranean as well as white tail feathers.

25034 - Mediterranean Gull (3K80), Bracelet Bay
25033 - Mediterranean Gull (3K80), Bracelet Bay

The final ringed bird was Red YHE8, a Serbian breeder.

25036 - Mediterranean Gull (YHE8), Bracelet Bay

The three birds above were also present on the 4th September when Barry Stewart recorded them. I have borrowed their family histories from his blog but will be sending my sightings off as well to help build the migratory knowledge of this species. I also took photographs of a couple of unringed birds which probably hail from similar localities as those above.

25035 - Mediterranean Gull, Bracelet Bay
25039 - Mediterranean Gull, Bracelet Bay

7 Comments

theconstantwalker · September 15, 2011 at 9:02 pm

Superb images Adam and a wonderful post to read.
Med Gulls are beautiful.

holdingmoments · September 15, 2011 at 9:51 pm

Great post Adam. Very interesting for someone like me that struggles with gull ID.

Bob Bushell · September 15, 2011 at 10:56 pm

Marvelous Med Gull pictures.

BlueShell · September 16, 2011 at 7:14 am

Oh…so tender. I Like it here! Greetings from Portugal (sorry for my poor English!!!)

AJ ( WestCross) · September 16, 2011 at 11:09 am

Was there late yesterday evening and only saw 3K80…. loads of unringed birds of all ages.. wonder if there are any breeding locally.??

Adam Tilt · September 19, 2011 at 11:02 pm

Andrew – thanks very much.

Keith – they can be a bit of a pain. It's taken me a good while to get my eye in but I still struggle when it comes to the less common species.

Bob – thank you.

BlueShell – thank you and welcome.

AJ – be interesting to find out. There might have been a breeding pair at WWT but I'm not sure.

Dave Sawyer · September 13, 2012 at 10:01 pm

Got a good pic of YHE8 Med gull at bracelet 22nd aug 2012

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