05th Nov 2015: More ringed gulls

Quite an interesting morning today. There was nothing outstanding to be seen but a few bits and bobs made it worth while. The first thing of note was a ringed Black-headed Gull. It had a red or orange ring, but unfortunately it was too far away to read any details and I didn't find it again.

The next stop was scanning through the loafing Lesser Black-backed Gulls where there was an adult Common Gull. A Yellow-legged Gull also dropped in for a short while.

Through into the woods I didn't see many birds to start with, there was a couple of fresh Otter spraints under the bridge though. I did eventually find some birds with a small tit flock foraging away. There was Blue, Great and Coal Tits with Goldcrests and Treecreepers.

Walking up the canal tow path to the the Upper Cherwell Valley a few Bullfinches flushed from the path ahead of me and there was another tit flock, this time mostly Long-tailed Tits. A Stonechat was still around the scrub and thick vegetation by the river. I assume there is still two, but couldn't find the second bird. There was quite a lot of birds at the Borrow Pit pool but annoyingly they were flushed by a dog walker before I could get there. Amongst the ducks flying away there was a smaller one I think was a Teal and amongst the gulls was a Herring or Yellow-legged Gull.

Back at the reservoir looking for the ringed Black-headed Gull from earlier, I found another two ringed birds. They both had white Davric rings. One was VK40 which was ringed in Denmark and the other was AF400 ringed in Germany. I find it fascinating to see where they travel to a from.