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This bird was seen at Simrishamn, Sweden, yesterday. Anyone out there who knows where they ring cachinnans on the right tibia? The ring looked like an extensively overlapping round ring (without lock) of poor quality.

Ukraine and Belarus uses ring on tibia .

Hi,
today I had this one. Although most large gulls at my site are CG in the moment, this one seems to be a YLG (primary pattern, yellow legs) in spite of it´s dark eye ?

It was tibia-ringed, already the 2nd one in this season. The question is: where do they come from? All YLG from Croatia and Italy had been ringed on tarsus so far.
Unfortunately the bird was too far away on ice to read the ring.

Wolfgang

hi wolfgang,

caspian gulls can have yellow legs even in nonbreeding season. and to me its bill looks better for caspian. maybe it is a caspian with much black in wingtip, such individuals have caused some discussion here. you have had some belorus birds at your place already - could these tibia-placed rings origin from there?

good gulling,

lou

Unfortunately the bird was too far away on ice to read the ring.

Hi Wolfgang,
Did you try to feed them with small pieces of (old) bread, getting them closer to read the ring? Nowadays, I never go watching gulls without some old bread.

Wolfgang's bird can also be an Estonian Herring, they often ring on the tibia.

No idea about Jörgen's bird. I've seen clip rings on Polish, Ukrainian and Belorussian birds but only on the tarsus (many recently ringed individuals from Poland and the Ukraine now have regular steel rings). I have to stress though that my sample size is small! Could it be Russian?

Thanks for your comments! My smal sample of ringed birds here at Simrishamn match Ruud´s experiences. Polish, Belorussian and Lithuanian (see photo) cachinnans and Herrings with clip-ring on tarsus. Russian and Estonian Herrings with regular ring or clip-ring on tarsus but Mew Gull with ring on right tibia. This ring did not look like either from what I could see. Maybe just poorly fitting or placed

Matsalu rings have been applied on both tarsus and tibia, see pictures from Łubna. I don't know about the status of cachinnans in Estonia? On second look, your bird may have some Herring blood...

Ruud Altenburg wrote:Wolfgang's bird can also be an Estonian Herring, they often ring on the tibia.

Yes I had checked this possibility already but I don´t think so: Dark eyes and complete lacking of any head streaking should exclude yellow-legged HG?
On the other hand: Compared with surrounding Caspians it looked quite different in jizz, leg length and leg colour...
A tricky bird indeed. I tried to find it again today but was not successful. Instead of it I have found a small Caspian with typical jizz and the most bright yellow legs I have seen so far.

marsmuusse wrote:Did you try to feed them with small pieces of (old) bread, getting them closer to read the ring? Nowadays, I never go watching gulls without some old bread.

Another advantage for Atlantic gullers Here I´m even not allowed to leave my car. I have tried this today at a compost dump near Krems. Result: all gulls away. I have always some packages of toast bread with me - for BHG. Today at a small port in Krems (river Donau) I used it to read a Czech BHG on ice; but a flock of large gulls did not react. They had full stomaches coming from the compost dump...
Nevertheless I could read 8P21 there, from Jankowice.

Wolfgang

Another advantage for Atlantic gullers Here I´m even not allowed to leave my car.

Yes, well Wolfgang. We have other ways to read darvic rings, I admit. We let them walk into a plastic bag with bread

(picture by Ruud, note the green ring left)