Results from the Morocco expedition

After we came home from Morocco and got used to -10 degrees and snow, the long dark evenings was used to punch the gull readings in excel. This work was more extensive than expected, which of course is most joyful. The total number of readings was about 735 of 367 different individuals. The e-mails with observations are at the moment sent to the different project managers and we are really looking forward to get the life histories and ringing informations. When this information is received and we have done some computing we will give a summary of the results as a post on this blog! The summary for the different 'countries' are as follows:

Country	Observations	Number ind.
Norway	231	99
The Netherlands	150	79
England	80	38
Belgium	71	37
Denmark	54	28
Spain	28	28*
Guernsey	25	10
Scotland	19	8
France	17	6
Germany	14	6
Iceland	9	4
Portugal	4	1
Sweden	1	1**
Unknown	32	22

*27 Audouin's Gulls and one Black-headed Gull
**Reading of metall ring

The species was dominated by Lesser Black-backed gull (Larus fuscus) followed by Audouin's Gull (Larus audouinii)

Species	Observations	Number ind.
Lesser Black-backed gull	706	338
Audouin's Gull	27	27
Mediterranean Gull	1	1
Black-headed Gull	1	1

We will end this blog with a picture of the reading that in our opinion was the best for us. This male Lesser Black-backed Gull JA8K was ringed on top of the Science building at University of Bergen. He incubated on three eggs but we do unfortunately not know who his girlfriend is. If he stick to her one more year we hopefully get more information in 2013. This picture was taken on the last observation date in Bergen 20th of August 2012.