Swans, BHGs abroad and cannon netting part 4

I haven't been writing a while so have much to compensate...

Last week I finally went to ring swans. The winter is good( cold) because finally I had few recoveries from Poland.. We went to Varazdin, Donja Dubrava and Šoderica(Koprivnica). All in all we caught 41 swan and read 44 more :)

Finally our BHGs went to Italy:) Last week I got first few recoveries from Adriano Talamelli for this winter and he also send me very first recovery of Caspian Gull ringed in Croatia :) Remember this guy?

It was ringed on December 19th 2010 on Jakuševec and found on January 10th 2011 on Dump of Tavullia,Pesaro, Italy.

After 3 weeks of abstinence we finally went to Jakusevec to ring some gulls. Day was everything but perfect :( 

First I forgot fire box and had to go to work to take it and lost some 45 minutes. Then we started setting the net but couldn't dig the cannons right because the soil was very hard. After we set the net I found out that the circuit tester was out of batteries so there was a chance that the circuit was not connected and we can find it out only at fire attempt.. After we set the net, we set in the car and waited and hold our fingers crossed that it will fire once I press the button.. Than some hour or so later gulls started to land. After 10 minutes fuscus landed in the catching area.. Everybody was very excited and when we agreed that it's ok to fire and that fucus is in the reach of the net  I press the fire button. but fuscus flew away freely :(

First catch was 30 BHGs.. After we ringed first catch we waited for another one.. Second catch was 28 BHGs, 7 YLG and 1 Caspian..

Caspian 2w

YLG same age same day

 The lection we learned is that gulls are much eager to get food when it's colder.. We knew that but I couldn't watch the winter passing by :(  

 After all 66 new ringed gulls and few of our BHGs read..

This is what we found on desk in small house on the dump.. Crucifix and porn: strange combination :)

Hope that the temperature will fall until next weekend.. 

Update on recoveries

First of all Merry Xmas and all the best in New Year!!

Yesterday I got e-mail from Ernst Weiss with my first recovery of BHG in Switzerland. It was white S296 which was ringed in January 2010 on Jakusevec and found yesterday in Zurich :)

In last 2 weeks I got some new recoveries from Austria:

S062 & S144 ringed in December 2009, S700 ringed in February 2007 and S510 ringed in January 2007 were seen around Wien. Observers : Günther Wöss, Harald Gross, Wolfgang Schweighofer, Christoph Roland and Matthias Schmidt.

S297 was seen at least 5 times in Groningen, The Netherlands during the December 2010. It was ringed in January 2010 on Jakusevec. Observers :

Henk van Huffelen, Klaas van Dijk, Rob Voesten and Jeroen Nagtegaal

 

S236 that was ringed in January 2010 on Jakusevec was seen twice During December in Frankfurt by Ingo Ingo Roesler.

 S234 that was ringed on the sam day as S236 was found in Hamburg on December 18th 2010 by Jens Hartmann.

Last 2 weekends we were not catching gulls on Jakusevec. 26th because of some missunderstanding with security on the entrence of the dump and last Sunday because of lack of people (Jelena and I were only ready to go).  

Now I'm going to ring swans around Drava river near Varazdin and Koprivnica and check Totovec rubbish tip to see if there are any gulls there.

Cannon netting part 3

Three Sundays in a row with great weather for catching gulls. After snow on Saturday, the temperature on Sunday morning was around -10. It was freezing!! We set up the net at 7:46 but first gulls landed around 10!! Again!! I don't know what's their problem. They came at 8 but it took them some two hours to land for the first time. In next half an hour we had two catches (40 + 80 gulls). Highlights of first catch was adult  cachinnans and first corvid ringed at Jakusevec, a Jackdaw.

This Sunday Ivan helped me with ringing.

When we were almost finished, Ivan wemt and fired one more time so the total cathc was:

La rid        161
La can          4
La mich        2
La cach        1
total          168(new record by one gull :) )


I've managed to take a photo of the first year cachinnans wearing yellow ring with black inscription 3L7E.. Is this from  Lithuania? Just saw on Marco's site that it is from Lithuania :) second one ever on Jakusevec!

Cannon netting part 2

Sunday started perfectly.. Very cold (although only -2) and dense fog.  Everything was set at 8:00 so we expect that we'll have first catch at 8:05 but gulls had other plans.. They were flaying around( we could hear them) but didn't landed until 10:00(!!!!) We were a bit frozen, but adrenalin warmed us up when they start landing on tip. First catch was few minutes after. Some 50 birds.. Immediately after we set up the net again and some 5 minutes later we had 50 more birds. Last catch was at noon.
All in all:

Larus ridibundus                   129
Larus michahelis                     15
Larus canus                             2
                            total         146

 

BHGs are done, just few YLGs and we're done

Guys taking blood samples, on this photo with "nurse"

Last week we started using  INTERREX double loop rings for BHGs and I must say they're really easy to put on and have big inscription so I think they'll produce lot's of recoveries :)

I managed to take photo of one of the fuscus on Sunday so I'd be grateful for any comments on subspecies.

Just noticed that BHG has white SC04 :)

 This one looks like Baltic because of shade of black (no contrast between primaries and rest of the wing)   and only small white dot on P1 but it's much bigger (fatter) than birds that pass here in spring..

And just when i thought that this day is over, I got e-mail from Wolfgang with our first recovery of BHG ringed Last Sunday and found yesterday in Wien :)

Some new and old recoveries

During last few days I had few new recoveries.

One from Ingo Roesler in Frankfurt. It's BHG ringed in January 2010 on Jakusevec and found December 7th 2010.

I got nice recovery few days ago from Wolfgang Schweighofer from Austria. His colleague Richard Katzinger read white S062. That BHG was ringed 20/12/2009 on Jakusevec, than found on 13/5/2010 in Lithuania on Panasupio rubbish dump and finally on 29/11/2010 in Wien in Austria.



View S062 in a larger map


I hope I'll see it in week or two here in Zagreb :)

I got ringing data for PUAC. It was ringed on 5/6/2010 in Kreminchukske vdskhstsh (reservoir), Cherkasi in Ukraine..

Unfortunately we will not go to Zadar rubbish tip this weekend but we'll be probably catching on Jakusevec again.. Not so bad:) maybe fuscus will come in the catching area...

First cannon netting in Croatia

Sunday finally came! Weather was really nice, -7 and dense fog :)

We got on rubbish tip at 6:30 and went to find appropriate site to put the net. This is something I've been dreaming about for more than 10 years since I started working with gulls on Jakuševec.

At about 8:00 everything was set.. The circuit was OK. Only thing we had to do is to wait in the car for the gulls to start eating dog food and bread we put in front of the net. We waited around 3 minutes when first gulls appeared. First catch was made at 8:05 :) It was around 60 birds. As you can see I was pretty excited because I forgot that I had camera:) 
After putting all the birds into boxes and dog tents we decided to make another catch because the gulls were not afraid and we had some spare places in our boxes. It took us some 10 minutes to make second catch. It was around 50 birds.

After this we decided to ring and take samples from the gulls we caught.
I was done with ringing at around half past 11 and decided to try to make another catch. Jelena and I set everything and get in the car. This time there were more gulls in the area but we had the safe zone problems. We had gulls walking on net and cannons. It can make you very nervous when you have fuscus in the catching area (and it's never been ringed in Croatia plus I'd like to catch and photograph and measure one of these wintering birds) and cannot fire :(

Last catch was more than 60 birds :)

All in all:


Larus ridibundus               157
Larus canus                         2
Larus michahellis                 7
Larus ?                               1
                       total         167

We caught one BHG from Poland and added white colouring.
One of the michahellis  we caught on Sunday had Croatian yellow ring. After I got home I realized that this gull was ringed this year by us on Mljet :)

We have one big first year gull I'm not sure about the species, so I'm open to comments:) I'm thinking of lower bird. Upper one should be michahellis. (All people who wrote me agree that both of these gulls are michahellis)

 

During waiting for third catch I managed to read one cachinnans from Ukraine. Third one from Ukraine on Jakusevec ever( first two were on metal rings).

Next week I plan to catch on Zadar rubbish tip :)

Preparation for Sunday

Today we finally got our new net out in the field. After 5 shoots we managed to stretch it almost fully. We got the length but didn't manage to spread it so the final area covered was approximately 6 x 10 meters.. Jump ropes were fully stretched and trace ropes really helped.. We rope net according to Clark..

I didn't have camera so i only have this mob photo.. 3 Lapwing models didn't have any chance to escape. Another new thing is that we were increasing amount of  black powder and finally settled at 10grams per cannon. This is much quicker than last time..

Yesterday I rolled 200 colour rings.. So on Sunday I'm hoping to start rubbish season :)

Beginning of the Swan season

Few days ago someone told me that the swans are back on Zagreb lakes..
So Vedran and I took our bikes and went first on Jarun and than I went to Bundek lake.

There were 17 Mute Swans on Jarun lake.. All adults exept 1 jungster. We manage to take them all on the beach and read 4 neck collars and 2 metal rings.

On Bundek there were 21 Mute swans, 6 jungsters, 2 neck collars and 1 metal ring read.

All of these birds had Croatian rings. Strangers will come later:)

So the winter has started...next week will try our new net for cannons and (hopefully) soon try it on rubbish tip :)

Today I saw first bigger flock of BHGs on Sava river, some few hundreds

New one in Poland

Last night Marcin Romanowski wrote me about new BHG found in Poland
White S274 was rinegd on Jakusevec 31/1/2010 and found Yesterday in Gdansk:) (cca 1000km)

View S274 in a larger map

1st one in Sweden

Great news today from Kjeld Tommy Pedersen:)
One lady was feeding birds in Malmö and spotted one of BHG ringed with our white S165. The bird was ringed on December 20th 2009 on Jakuševec, and was found on November 6th 2010 in Malmö, some 1200 km from ringing place. It's the very first of our BHGs found in Sweden (hopefully not last :) )


View S165 in a larger map