IGM 2012 Zagreb, Croatia

Dear Gull People!

We are happy to announce the next International Gull Meeting that will take place in Zagreb, Croatia from Thursday 16^th-Sunday 19^th February 2012 and will be organized by BIOM – Association for Biological Research.

The meeting itself will take place at a few localities in Zagreb. Hopefully, we’ll all meet on Thursday afternoon (16.2.). Further, talks and registration of participants are planned to take place at the Division of Biology, Faculty of Science of the University of Zagreb. Talks are planned to be held during the whole Friday and on Saturday afternoon. On Saturday morning (18.2.) we plan a trip to the Jakuševec rubbish dump where we would see up to 20.000 gulls. Most of them will be Black-headed Gulls, but you will also see Common, Yellow-legged, Caspian, Herring, Lesser Black-backed, Great Black-backed Gulls and maybe some moreJ.  That’s going to be an opportunity to read lot’s of color and metal ring from all over Europe.  On the Saturday trip we’ll just watch gulls and on Sunday we plan to take a cannon netting session with those who are interested. Trips will start from Hotel Zagreb (http://www.hotelzagreb.com.hr/en/home ) where we found best prices for the participants. However, you are free to choose your own accommodation. We will provide you with a list of hotels upon request. Just across the street of hotel Zagreb is Lake Bundek located where you can see some gulls, swans and other waterfowl. The hotel is also in the vicinity of the rubbish dump, so we wouldn't lose much time for the trip(s).

During September we’ll send you details of the meeting with all the time tables and prices. Until then you can reach us at igm@biom.hr and all the new information about the meeting can be found on BIOM’s web site www.biom.hr.

At the end of this post you’ll find some questions that would really help us in calculations and writing the second announcement.

We are looking forward to hear from you and to see you in Zagreb next year!

All the best!

Luka Jurinović & the Croatian IGM team

PLEASE FILL AND SEND TO igm@biom.hr  before August 31^st 2011

Name:

Email:

Post address:

Probability of participating =        %  

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?

Any additional suggestions or comments are welcome and helpful!

Too old Yelkouan's

Last few days Ivana (aka Višnja), Vedran, Ivan and I spent on Lastovo looking to ring Yelkouan's and Scopoli's Shearwaters. The plan was to get to the biggest colony at first night and then in day time look on smaller colonies to see if there are enough youngsters to go and ring in the night when adults come to feed them.

Ivan in action

Unfortunately, most of the Yelkouan's already fledged  and only few youngsters and adults were present at the colony :(
First night we managed to ring 19 Yelkouan's and 3 Scopoli's. We caught 1 Yelkouan and 1 Scopoly with our rings from last years(I'll put ringing data here when I get them ;)).
 Most of the Yelkouans were young but some were very difficult to age..

young punk Yelkouan

Ivana and Yelkouan

Now little batch of "Vedran and .. "  photos:

On last photo is holding a rat in a trap. It's part of active control of rat population on island with tubenoses colonies on it. Ivan started doing that this year in coordination with Lastovo Nature Park. This year there were much more Yelkouan chicks than last years because of it. Unfortunately we missed timing... It will be much more next year!

Next day Ivana and Ivan went to check other colonies.. All the youngsters were already left so we didn't even wisited it at night..

And in the end just wanted to put a photo of a camp we slept in.

It's camp Skriveni near Skrivena Luka. Prices are very cheap and it's really nice! People are very friendly. We came at half past 4 from the colony first night and it was ok :) Also you can get dinner for 60kn (around 8Euros) with huge portion of fresh fish and home made wine. Very delicious! I was there for the first time and would like  recommend it!

One more photo for the end :

Ivana's new hair decoration made of  cicada exuviae :)

Making new net

Today we finally started making new net for new cannons.. I had big netting that should be around 13 x 26m and planed to make 12x22m net out of it. The reality was a bit different :(

When we stretched the netting it wasn't looking that big.. After more than 7 hours of work we managed to make 17x9 net. It isn't that big but it looks huge to us :)  and we think it'll catch lots of gulls this winter and hopefully lots of other birds before winter...

I can't wait to finish it and try it :)

  

Common Tern ringing near Zagreb

The day started very bad as we took 3 shoots with new cannons and still didn't manage to stretch the whole net :(

After that we went to ring some Common Tern chicks at one colony in Zagreb.. It was great!! In hour and twenty minutes Zec and I ringed 73 pulli!! Great number!! And didn't risk our life at any moment :)
Next year we have to start using colour rings for Common Terns!

On the same island we found 6 Great Crested Grebe nest (still with eggs), Few dead YLGs and one dead BHG with white ring from Jakusevec from this winter..

On Friday we'll try to stretch the net with new cannons... again :(

The Day we swim across The Great Water

On Friday there was a plan for us to go on second round in Common Tern colony. Everything sounded great until Goran called me Thursday evening and said that we won't have a boat and we'll need to swim over to the colony. Zec, Vedran and I agreed that it won't be a problem.
We arrived at the scene around half past 8 and started making our way to the place where we took off. The river was not cold (around 20C) but it was very fast, much faster then we remember when we last time crossed it with a boat. Goran (who had kayak with one seat :)) told us that we should walk as far as we can and then jump in the river so that we have as little as possible to swim. Sounds logical, but the problem was that you couldn't stay at one place if the water is above your waist. Vedran was the first one to go.. Zec and I were waiting for few moments and than we started. At first it didn't seem that hard , but as the time was passing the place we wanted to end at the island was going really far from us. I could see the Vedran has reached the shallow water near the island so at one time I tried to get my feet to the ground but it was too deep..That was really bad because I relaxed a little so it was really hard to swim more.. At last we got across!! Finally!!

Landing 

and we're ready to go ..

It was very nice weather, warm but with few clouds so the chicks and eggs were not threatened with either overheating or freezing. We decided to stay around 45 minutes. We managed to ring 35 new Common Tern chicks and 1 Little Ringed Plover.

Vedran and his new friends

Zec and his new friend.

We found few Common Tern and few Little Tern nests. We also found few nest we are not sure of the parents and I would be grateful for any comments.

What's this? (there's one egg in the middle :))

These eggs were cc 25% bigger than Common Tern eggs

This should be Common Tern but funny thing is that eggs are really different..

The time has come to go back! In the mean time the river is at least 20 cm higher... But we have to go back..
This time I was the first one to go.. I started swimming and first 30 m were ok.. Than I started to panic as the place where I thought I'll get out was going away... some 15 meters before the coast I was almost sure I'll miss the place :( Biggest problem is if I miss this I didn't know where will I get out... And you can not relax on the river as you can in the sea.. Then I managed to touch the ground some 10 meters from the coast :) I barely got the strength to get out.. To swim 60 m  of river we ended 150m lower then we started...

half-dead 

Here is one video clip to illustrate the strength and speed of the Great Water..

Hope we'll be back there in week or to to ring Little Terns.. 

Next week I we plan to visit one Common tern colony in Zagreb..
All of this photos and video of swimming were taken by Goran.

I forgot to mention that we tried our new cannons..They are fast like hell!! We have some things to try beore catching real birds :)

video of the first shoot with new cannons

Common Tern ringing on Drava River

Today Zec, Sven and I meet with Goran Safarek to go and ring some Common Terns. Forecast was terribly wrong!! It should be dry in the morning and possible rain in the afternoon.. We came at 8:30 and it was raining..
We put the boat on the car and went to see if we'll be able to go to the colony...

When we came to the place it was raining a bit so we decided to go to the colony. After rowing across the river we got to the islet with the colony. It was great! There were some 50 pairs of Common Terns, 10 pairs of Little Ringed Plovers, few Little Terns and Common Sandpiper. We started to look for the chicks and after some 15 minutes it started to rain harder so we decided to move from the colony :( we managed to ring 13 chicks.. We also found at least 20 nests with eggs so we'll probably get back in 10 days or so..
After we got back to the place we parked the car and took the boat from the river the sun started to shine :(

After returning the boat we went to have a drink and there was one Wood Pigeon all the time.. When we went to pay I was speaking with the waiter and he told me that it's nest is under the roof...So we ringed it:) New species ringed for me :)

YLG, Common Terns and Little Ringed Plovers

Last Saturday we were ringing YLG pulli on small islets around Mljet National Park. We had used all the colour rings we had, around 160. The weather was fine and so was the sea:) we managed to take a swim 5 times:)

Biggest YLG colony around Mljet

On our way to the colonies of YLGs we stopped to check Common Terns. We found two chicks :)

On our way back home we stopped at Neretva delta to see if there's anything interesting there. As it was Sunday, there were many people around so we didn't see anything special but we found and ringed 3 Little Ringed Plover chicks. You can never get enough of them :)

There were also few Pygmy Cormorants roosting on the beach.

I got new cammera last week so the photos are better than before.. And there'll be more of them in future..

I hope we'll fire new cannons this week..

New cannons and first recovery of Mallard from Crna Mlaka

New post after a while...

Last week I got new cannons! Yesterday I painted them black and now they look like this

I can't wait to try them next week :)

Last week was also special because I got first recovery of one of almost 100 Mallards which I nasal saddled on Crna Mlaka fish ponds. I would much happier if someone read the nasal saddle  instead of shooting the poor bird..I ringed it as 1st year male in November 2008 and it was found in Sosnovka, Mordovia, Russia on May 4th 2011... some 2200 km from ringing place :)

View Mallard in a larger map

I hope to  cannon net some ducks this summer/autumn and start to use nasal saddles again..

This weekend we're going to Mljet to ring YLG and Common Tern pulli :)

First BHG in France

Today Pierre Crouzier sent me 2 recoveries of our BHGs in France. First two ever in France!! Both were ringed on December 5th 2010 on Jakuševec and found on La Tienne garbage dump just north of Lyon in March 2011.

Very few European countries are now missing on my list :)


Here in Zagreb there are no BHGs. Also I don't get any recoveries from Austria and Hungary, so most of them are probably heading north..Last few days I got more recoveries from Poland..

The Great Southern Adventure

During last week Krešo, Ivan, Vedran, Hrvoje and I took a jurney to the end of Croatian part of Adriatic.

"Look!! There are Shags, Scopoli's, Yelkouans and gulls!"

Our little boat. ELAN 45 "Krila VI"

We sailed from Biograd to Molunat and back. Our goal was to get as much data on breeding birds in southern Adriatic as possible. The species we were looking for were Shags, tubenoses, Peregrines and Audouin's Gulls. Also other species were recorded. The journey lasted for 8 days. We were very lucky with the weather. First 6 days were sunny with a bit of wind, just enogh to sail and that it isn't to hot.

Vedran watching dolphins :)

Dinner is served..

View the great southern adventure in a larger map

We found many new pairs of Shags and Peregrins and had an opportunity to watch tubenoses in high concetrations on close range.

During this week we colour ringed more than 100 Shags. Mostly pulli and two adult birds. There are not many data from Shags from middle and south Adriatic so we hope we'll get some recoveries..

Ringing on one colony in the middle Adriatic. At that islet we ringed more than 60 chicks :)

Ivan trying to get Shag chick from the burrow

Few highlights :

Loggerhead sea turtle

Sunfish

Nice weekend cottage

 

One of the greatest moment happened on the sea between Lastovo and Mljet. First we saw a raft of Yelkouans of approximately 60 birds and it was already great sight.

 

As we were comming closer to the raft we noticed that tubenoses are everywhere around us :) All of a sudden tunas started to get out the water catching smaller fish. Then from everywhere tubenoses and gulls started to arrive and eat the fish. The sea was boiling!! These scenes we only watched on National Geographic or similar programs. Tubenoses were diving and gulls were taking fish from the surface!! Great great sight!!! 

Boiling sea :)

I filmed a very bad video but you can see how was it.

All in all  we had a blast!! Hope we'll do something like this again next year.