Two gulls from northwestern Norway

The 26th of September (This post is published after some delay) was spent on the western islands looking for eastern rarities. The first thing we did was feeding out a bag of bread and start to scan gull feet for color rings, once a gull addict always a gull addict. It did not take long before the first Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) with a black JN was spotted. It was ringed on the island of Fedje earlier this spring, so this one was quite ordinary. The next one was much better a fact we knew right away because it was a 1 cy Great Black-backed Gull (Larus marinus) which we have ringed only a few of this year. We suspected that this was the ringing work of Ingar Støyle Bringsvor (blog is in Norwegian). When the number was typed into the database well at home our suspicion proved to be correct. The eastern rarities was absent but this gull made our day.

JP954 was ringed in a breeding colony at Sand in Møre og Romsdal concil 176 kilometres north of where it feed well on our bread.

Well back to the urban sites we used the leftover bread to see if any new gulls had arrived. The first one to show up behaving very aggressively towards the other was a Herring Gull with a black unkown ring to us. The database was quickly accessed through the phone and indeed this was also ringed by Ingar Støyle Bringsvor!

J4743 was ringed at the island Runde which is one of Norways most famous seabird colonies. 

Wing and tail pattern for J4743

The Great Black-backed Gull is the first we have from this region but the Herring Gull is our second. Our first was the 18 year old, who this spring turned 19, and returned to Bergen 15th of July. We end this post with a picture of the 19 year old Herring Gull born in the same area as the 2012 model.

JN707 showed up in the park 15th of July and have since been seen at a regular basis.