Small but nice catch

The weather forecast was perfect. Sunny with -10C.

We came to tip at 8 and waited for guys with bulldozers and compactor to clean the tip and place the rubbish in front our net. It wasn't that cold and there was not a big amount of rubbish so I thought we'll be firing shortly..Not so fast...

We didn't get the best place but it looked ok.

After we put the net we waited for gulls.

First gulls started landing at noon. At that time I was afraid that we won't even fire...Then finally the gulls started coming but it took them really long time to get in the catching area. The problem was that mostly big gulls were in the catching area and I figured that we won't get big numbers...

I fired the first clean shoot and the catch was really nice. 42 birds, but only 5 BHGs, 8 Caspians and 29 YLGs.


As it was 13 allready I decided not to take another catch. This was a great opportunity for people to practice ringing gulls.They're getting faster and better in gul ID. It was fun and  I think that next year we'll be ready for bigger numbers as there'll be much more people ringing.

"Of course it's YLG!"

And few photos of ringed birds in the end:

784H  2w mich 

785H  1w cach

786H  1w mich

791H  1w cach

796H   adult cach with pale eyes

797H  1w cach 

803H  2w mich

802H 2w cach 

804H  2w mich

811H  3w mich

810H 3w mich

816H  1w cach 

826H adult cach

let it snow let it snow...

It was one of the best and one of the worst cannon netting session on Jakuševec in history! All in one:)

We ringed LBBG!

It is the very second ever for Croatia!! But let's start from the beginning..

It was suppose to snow a little between 8 and 10 and then it should be without snow..
I got out of my home at 7 15 and it just started to snow a bit. Until we got to the tip everything was white already and it didn't looked as it's going to stop.. We managed to climb the rubbish hill and the guys were already removing the rubbish so I tought we'll start earlier than last time..

Did I mention we ringed LBBG?

 
The guy on the bulldozer told us that he will be over with everything in 20, max 30 minutes.. The problem is that we heard that last time and we couldn't start untill 11 30.. But this time it was different. He really gave us one load  and we set the net in front of it. Then the compactor came and did perfect job.. We had lots of gull in the catching area but they were still coming and it looked  as it will be great  big catch..few seconds later Zec told me that there is LBBG in the catching area. I was waiting for the first cleen window to make a catch. And we caught the dark bastard!!!!

It was very fast extraction considering it was really unexperienced team..
It looked as "almost a hundred" catch. Not bad if you have fuscus in it :)

Real trouble started with processing the birds. We decided not to take another catch because of the birds' safety.. Half of us started proccesing the birds and others were putting equipment in the car .
It was horrible!! Everything was wet. We couldn't find anything on the table because snow was covering it..
We wanted to ring all the birds as quickly as possible and go somewhere warm..

Biruš couldn't write outside as it was all wet..

Basrek was ringing small gulls and I was ringing big ones. It was becoming better and better.
First I ringed the LBBG! (is this dark enough for Baltic?)

Few birds later I took adult Caspian from the sack:

Just when I thought it couldn't get better I got this from the sack:)

an adult Herring Gull(any comments on subspecies?)!!! Fifth ever ringed in Croatia(all on Jakuševec:))

It was really good catch!  4 species of big gulls in one catch:)
Final score is

YLG     22
HG        1
LBBG    1
Caspian  7
BHG      61

total       91


Here are few more Caspians:

768H 1w

773H 1w

783H 2w with deformed bill