Ringing at Hosehill Lake LNR

The ringing is funded by West Berkshire Council Countryside Service and we are very grateful for the assistance
provided by TABCG to ferry us out to the island for the ringing sessions.

Hosehill has turned out to be an excellent place to ring the gulls. After they have fledged many of the birds spend a
lot of time loafing on the main island where they can be seen and the ring numbers easily read from the viewing
screen. This means that we have proof of fledging for a very high proportion of the birds.

For the purposes of initial analysis we are using a 20 km limit to distinguish between local and distant records -
20 km covers the Dinton Pastures complex, Moor Green Lakes and reaches as far west as Lower Farm, Newbury
.Several birds have been seen at more than one of these sites within a few days and it seems likely that first year
birds at least wander around the entire district.

2009

In 2009 we colour ringed 100 pulli - these birds have a white ring with a 4 character code on the left leg and a
metal BTO ring on the right leg. An additional 54 pulli were just ringed with metal BTO rings.

Some birds dispersed very quickly - one bird was 10km away at Midgham within 12 days of being ringed, whilst many
others spent a lot of time at Hosehill for several weeks. The loafing area was rarely used after the end of July so
sightings after then obviously tailed off.

The first bird returned to Hosehill on 1 April 2010 and during the summer 33 different birds ringed in 2009 were
seen at least once locally. A few have been seen regularly at Hosehill and a handful were seen mating or sitting
on nests. A few first year birds do breed, mainly females, but most wait until they are 2 or 3 years old. The majority
of first years have only been seen on a few dates and some have made several visits to Hosehill over the summer.
Four birds were seen in the Dinton area and 1 bird visited Moor Green - most of these were also seen at Hosehill at
some time during the summer. While some birds were back at the colony others was still in the far west of Wales on
2 April and Eire on 19 May. One of the most interesting birds was 2X15 which was at Hosehill from 28 May until 9
June but then turned up near Dublin less than a month later on 7 July!

The following distant sightings have been reported so far and several of these birds have subsequently
been seen back at Hosehill or the local area.

Entries in bold have been updated

2010

On 7 and 12 June 2010 we colour ringed a further 116 pulli - these birds also have a white ring with a 4 character
code on the left leg and a metal BTO ring on the right leg. An additional 12 pulli were ringed with just metal BTO
rings. As in 2009 a lot of these birds spent a lot of time loafing in front of the viewing screen and we were able to
prove that many had fledged. A few discovered the growing flock of Gulls at Burnthouse Lane GP a few kilometers
away and some commuted between the two sites. By mid-July virtually all the birds had dispersed.

Entries in bold have been updated

SUMMARY

For the purposes of initial analysis we are using a 20 km limit to distinguish between local and distant records -
20 km covers the Dinton Pastures complex, Moor Green Lakes and reaches as far west as Lower Farm, Newbury
.Several birds have been seen at more than one of these sites within a few days and it seems likely that first year
birds at least wander around the entire district.