Finally the new net

Yesterday I took the biggest ever cannon netting team in Croatia and the seven of us went to Jakuševec to start a cannon netting season with new net. It was pretty foggy and I was afraid if there will be any gulls on the tip. After some troubles with entrance, we managed to agree the place on the tip where we'll put the net. Funny thing was that the guy that was in charge of the tip put two truck loads to separate us from the rest of the tip and so that the other trucks wouldn't come there :) well done!

It took us some 45 minutes to set the net and then it was just a question if the compactor driver will do his part well..

He did very good job! it looked like when I was in England with North Thames Gull Group. Zec and I were looking at the net. He was checking the safety zone and I was waiting for enough gulls and a window to put the net trough.. After a minute or so gulls started to land in front of the net. It looked very promising but somehow they didn't get concentrated enough so after some 10 minute we decided to take a catch. It was not so many gulls  :( but the net spread very very nice. It was around 40 gulls. When we extracted all the birds we started with ringing and taking samples.

After an hour or so there were only few birds left so Vedran finished ringing and  Zec, Sven and I started setting the net for the second catch. The compactor driver was even better this time. It's unbelievable what they can do with that huge vehicle and how precise can they be! Second catch was around 50 birds with a dessert at the end an adult Caspian Gull.

Caspian and Yellow-legged

Again two of them

The funny thing about this big net and working with compactor is that we got much more big gulls. Total score was 53 BHG, 28 YLG, 1 Caspian and 3 I'm not sure of the species (all comments are welcome).  I think we'll get much bigger catches in weeks to come. There are still only 2 or 3 thousands gulls on the rubbish tip and these numbers should grow very fast in near future and reach some 15000 which is normal for winter. I think the gulls will be much concentrated then.
We set the next catch for next Saturday.

And at the end those mistery gulls :)
379H

347H It was huge one, with very pinky legs.

and 393H

Friday and Saturday at Jakuševec

Yesterday I went to check on Jakuševec if the gulls have arrived and I was pleased to count almost 2000 of them.. More than 1500 of them were BHGs. There were at least 3 LBBG and first canus had arrived.. I managed to read more than 30 different rings on parking just outside of the rubbish tip :) Mostly Croatian michahellis but also 7 of our BHGs and one Hungarian BHG and one  Polish BHG (T91R Tomek :))

After the parking I went to the tip and spoke with guys there and had a deal to come today and try to catch on the tip and that they will help me with compactor and bulldozers.

Today we got on the tip just before 8 and there were already some gulls there. After a talk with a tip supervisor we were waiting for them to clear the place where we can put net.  There were only 3 of us so we decided to use the small (10x10) net. We set it up in some 20 minutes and waited for compactor driver.

Zec furling the net

 He was very precise but wouldn't listen what I wanted him to do:( so after some 20 minutes we managed to take a catch. It was only 19 BHGs and 4 YLG..

Višnja's first BHG

 After ringing we set the net for the second shot but it didn't happen because we have some misunderstanding with the guy on the tip.. So we half satisfied went home and agreed the  next catch for 26th November and plan to have at least 8 people so that we can finally use the new net :)

Lot's of recoveries

Last 7 days I got 26 recoveries of my BHGs. Most of them from Poland (9) and Austria (6). But there were new ones from Holland, Sweden and Lithuania. Here are some photos of Gulls found on zalew Witoszowka,Swidnica, Dolnoslaskie in Poland by Maciej Gajewski.

The highlight of the week was S103. It was ringed on Jakuševec on December 20th 2009. On October 29th 2011 it was in Simmering, wien, Austria and on November 5th 2011 in Malmo, Sweden. Not only it was fast but it was going in "wrong direction" :) There are lot's of things we will learn about BHGs...

Prikaži S103 na većoj karti

New gull season

Today I went to Jakuševec to check if there is enough gulls to start catching season..

There were less than 500 gulls so I decided to postpone it for a week or two..

There were around 300 YLGs and 200 BHGs, one GBBG, one LBBG and at least 5 Caspians.

I managed to read 9 Croatian color ringed YLGs, 2 Croatian BHGs. But the star of the day was Caspian with yellow 2LZV. This one should be from Lithuania.

2LZV  is 1sr year gull in the middle (you can't see the ring) 

After few e-mails with Ricardas from Lithuanian ringing scheme  and watching all the photos carefully again we concluded it's 2L7V. 

The bird was ringed in mixed colony of HG and CG in Novaraistis, Kauno r., Lietuva on June 16th this year.

New net :)

Remember the net we were netting in June?
Today we finally fired it :)
It was great! We managed to stretch it really nice.
Only problem is that I think we won't be able to make a catch with only 4 people..


You can see it here

On Friday I'm going to check if there are enough gulls on Jakuševec and maybe we'll open the season On Saturday:)

We must practice so that we catch many gulls in February when we'll have guest at our rubbish tip.

Update for IGM

During the IGM we’ll organise a colour ringing workshop. Main subjects could be materials, designs, self-rolling, coding, analysis of cr data etc. Your examples and subsubjects for this matter are very welcome. If you have any ideas please let me know , so that I can organise it better..



As for the slide shows in the evenings, if you have some slides you'd like to present, please give me the themes so I could organise it a bit..



New confirmed talks:



Viola Ross-Smith "Gull migration: calibrating colour ringing data with GPS telemetry"

Aonghais Cook "Analysis of colour-ringing data: Maximising the impact of your efforts"




Risto Juvaste will give talk entitled "Exciting (but yet secret) results from 127 GPS-transmitter LBBG-migration project" instead of "How to estimate migration timing by reads"

Abstracts for talks will be online in few days..

Second Announcement finally

11th International Gull Meeting

Zagreb 2012, February 16^th-19^th

Second Announcement

General info

The International Gull Meeting will be organized by the Association BIOM.

The official language of the meeting will be English.

Registration

The registration fee is 120€ if paid until December 15th 2011. You can pay via

1) PayPal (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=EGFZAGDH4RVMS)

2) bank transaction to BIOM’s account (http://www.biom.hr/en/kontakt/).



After December 15th the registration fee will be 135 € and can be also paid in cash

(local currency: Kuna) upon arrival in Zagreb.

The registration fee covers:

· two lunches (Friday and Saturday) and one dinner (Friday) at Hotel Zagreb

· gala dinner at Didov san (traditional Croatian restaurant)

· transportation during the Meeting

· two trips to Jakuševec rubbish tip

· organizing costs



Note that drinks are not included in this price.

If you have special preferences regarding your food (vegetarian, allergies etc.), please indicate this in your registration form.


Accomodation

Accomodation for participants is available at special prices in Hotel Zagreb (http://www.hotelzagreb.com.hr/en/home):
single room 250 Kn (around 33 € ) per person per night
double room 300 Kn (around 40 €) for two persons per night.
Breakfast & VAT included in room rate. City tax per person / day – 7 Kn (1 €)..


Participants should reserve the room as soon as possible to get preferred rooms. We have arranged with the hotel to keep rooms for 50 people available for two weeks (that’s until October 30th 2011). After that we cannot guarantee that there will be rooms available. You can reserve a room at the Hotel’s website http://hotel-zagreb.com.hr/en/reservations. You should put under “note” that you are attending the International Gull Meeting in order to get special prices. You can also ask for a smoking or nonsmoking room.

If you would like to share a room with someone and you haven’t made final arrangements you can contact us and we’ll put you in contact with others who are in the same situation.



Hotel Zagreb is an old hotel and it’s a budget-friendly solution with WiFi.

We also arranged better prices for other accommodation. You can stay also at Hotel International (http://www.hotel-international.hr/) at these prices:

single room 550 Kn (around 73 € ) per person per night
double room 650 Kn (around 87 €) for two persons per night.
Breakfast & VAT included in room rate. City tax per person / day – 7 Kn (1 €).

Transportation from Hotel International to Hotel Zagreb, where the meeting will be held and where the starting point for the trips is, will be organized.

Hotel International is more convenient for the disabled as Hotel Zagreb does not have elevators.

You can get info about other hotels and hostels upon request.


How to get to the IGM


If you are coming by plane, the easiest way to get to Hotel Zagreb is to take the transfer bus at the airport and ask the driver to leave you at Bundek station (it is on-demand station some 3 minutes walking distance from Hotel Zagreb). The ticket costs 30 Kn (4 €) and you can find the schedule at http://www.plesoprijevoz.hr/schedulezg.htm

Provisional agenda of the Meeting:

	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
morning		10:00 -13:00 Talks	8:00 -12:00 trip to Jakuševec rubbish tip	7:00 - cannon netting at Jakuševec
lunch		13:00 -15:00 Lunch break	13:00-15:00 Lunch break
afternoon	18:00- Registration at Hotel Zagreb beer, wine and slides A	15:00 -19:30 Talks	15:00-19:30 Talks
evening		20:00 - 22:00 dinner  22:00 - slide shows	20:00 - 24:00 dinner at traditional Croatian restaurant

List of confirmed talks so far (updates can be found on www.biom.hr/igm):

Chris Gibbins            Is it possible to identify heinei Common Gulls in the field?

Risto Juvaste            Sexing of gull chicks by measurements

Risto Juvaste            How to estimate migration timing by reads

Peter Rock                 Urban gulls

Paul Roper                 North Thames Gull Group

Paul Veron                 Guernsey Gulls – An outline of the research projects being run on the three Larid species breeding in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, English Channel

Zsolt Karcza              Gull colour ringing in Hungary 1994-2011

& Peter Szinai          

Nick Rossiter             Yellow-legged Gull: Differences between Atlantic and Mediterranean populations

Ruud Altenburg        Extent of post-juvenile moult in first winter michahellis

Mars Muusse             ID of second calendar year Larus heuglini

Morten Helberg         Were do Norwegian gulls migrate? Results from read ringing data from southern Norway 1995-present

Luka Jurinović          Gulls in Croatia: species, statuses and numbers

Jelena Kralj                Movements of eastern Adriatic Yellow-legged Gulls - 12 years of colour-ringing

Vladimir Savić           Influenza viruses in gulls

There has been a change in the organization of the meeting and all talks will be held at Hotel Zagreb. That way we will have much more time for the talks as we will not have to loose time on transportation. In addition, this way we have the possibility of having slide shows after dinner.

If you have some interesting photos, prepare them for these sessions and we can discuss them over beer or wine.

We assume that most of the talks will be prepared in PowerPoint so we will prepare a laptop and projector. If you need something special for your talk please let us know so we can try to arrange it. We would appreciate if you could send the talk to us in advance so that we can make sure that everything will work fine. Talks will be limited to 30 minutes.

Registration

Those of you who sent me the registration form after the 1^st announcement and said that you will attend 100% I count as coming and you don’t have to write me unless you have other questions or notes.

Those that said they will come with percentage less than 100%, please send email me if you’ll come as soon as possible so that I know how many people are coming exactly.

Others, who will come to the meeting, please fill the form at the end of this announcement and send it back to igm@biom.hr as soon as possible.

There is no real deadline for registration, but we are limited to 50 people for the trip and for the room where talks will be held.

If you have any other questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us at igm@biom.hr.

Hope to see you in Zagreb!

Luka Jurinović and Croatian IGM team

Name:

Email:

Post address:

Do you plan to have a talk?

 If so, please give us the title and estimated duration of talk: 

Do you want to participate in:

                Saturday trip to the rubbish tip?

                Sunday cannon netting session?

The start of cannon netting season

Last week Zec and I started cannon netting season. We got an invitation from local veterinarian to catch some gulls on their rubbish tip. I was a bit suspicious because it was new tip and we were suppose to work with compacter driver instead of throwing food in front of the net.
We got to Poreč on Tuesday at around 5 pm and first went to put our things in the room and then to see the tip and plan our catches for days that follow. It's funny when you're cannon netting and find House rules that look like this :

After that we went to the tip and were very pleased with it. It's a small rubbish tip with some 200m2 of rubbish and (at that time some) 600 gulls, mostly YLG but there were few MedGulls we wer hoping to catch.

Next morning we were at the tip at 8:30 and there were few loads of garbage waited just for us :-) First we arrange everything with compactor drivers and started put the net. There were some 1200YLGs, few tens BHGs and few MedGulls. After some half an hour we were ready and just waiting for drivers to do their part.. first catch was not that good as there were few people and trucks in front of the net.. When everything was clear we took first catch. 12 YLGs.. not many but it was the first one.. after ringing and resetting the net we spoke with drivers about putting garbage a bit closer to the net.

net was 30m in front of the car

Second one was much better with almost 40 YLGs but few escaped as there were only two of us :(
Third catch was something more than 20 gulls so we ended our first day with 61 YLGs.. Not bad!

Second day we already knew that there are only 14 trucks in Poreč and that they do two tours; one around 10 and one around 12... So we had two catches :) all together  58 YLGs.. 57 new and One ringed in 1999 at one colony nearby. It had only colour ring so we put new metal ring.

Last day we did only 10 o'clock catch with 23 YLGs.

New tip, 3 days, 6 catches, 141 YLG.. not bad! 

First time with new cannons! They are much better and faster then the old ones.

and I got one of the best bites ever :)

I'm sure we'll come back here :)

Waders on Kopački rit and BHGs accross the Europe

On Thursday Vedran, Davor, Sven, Višnja and I went to Kopački Rit Nature Park to catch some waders.

There is place at Kopacko Lake that can hold up to 1500 Spotted Redshanks. As it's flooding area it is highly dependent on Dunav water level. We were keeping an eye on the it and decided that Thursday is the day.
We got there at around 1 pm and started to fill the boat with our stuff.

Five of us were in one boat and equipment in another.

There was slight possibility that we couldn't get into the lake with boats, but in the end we managed somehow..In next few hours we put the nets(almost 200 meters) and camp up an were waiting for the night.

Before we put the nets we checked the area and saw around 200 waders , mostly Spotted Redshanks..We decided to raise nets at 8pm and first visit was at around 21:30.. It was not much.. :( just five birds :(  3 Greenshanks,1 Spotted Redshank and 1 Curlew Sandpiper).. Second visit was 3 birds ; Greenshank, Snipe and wood Sandpiper.. 

After that we decided to go home next day.. All in all it was very nice but not that successful trip...
Few more photos of the area:

fogy morning

our camp

Kopacko Lake

roosting Cormorants

My problem is that I'm starting to think that there are no good places in Croatia to catch waders.. We were thinking of taking cannon nets but we gave up that in the end and it was good idea because there were no dry places where waders were resting... Only thing we have left are flocks in winter and on spring migration.. Hope to try that next winter..

In last few weeks I got some recoveries of our BHGs, mostly from Poland, Germany, Hungary and Neatherlands. I got most western recovery of one of our BHGs from Vilvoorde (Vlaams-Brabant/Belgium) from Maurice Segers. It seems that they are still in the north.. I can't wait to try my new net this winter  :)

There are still few more days for registration for the IGM in Zagreb and all of you  who are thinking of coming, please send me notification so that I can do the calculation of the fee and other things.. Second announcement will be in some two weeks..