Freezing Sunday

We got to Jakuševec at 7. It was FREEEEEZING. The temperature was around -2C but the wind was horrible.
After 3 people have withdrawn it was only 4 of us. It was really a small team.

The net was set at 8:20 and it was obvious that we won't have much time to drink coffee while waiting for gulls..It took them less than 10 minutes to find the bait in the catching area. We had lot's of air traffic and we took a first clear shoot.

It looked very nice, especially for such a small team :)

97 BHG
2  CG
6 YLG
105 total :)

One of the BHG had very worn Hungarian aluminium ring so we replaced it with new Croatian and added white one.

It was first time this winter we saw almost black-headed BHGs.

At 11 we were already over with really good result: 105 gulls colour ringed. We were frozen and decided to call it a day :)

Next weekend it should be much colder, even -11C. Hope we'll get bigger team and get many many birds :) and that it won't be windy..

Great Sunday at Jakuševec

The forcast was correct. It was 5C and rising.. :(

The net was set at 8:43 ans it didn't took the gulls long to come :)
After last week experience and waiting until 13 for first shot I decided to take a catch as soon as it's clear.
It happened after some 20 minutes and it was clear that it's finally first catch over 100 gulls ever :)

It took us some time to free the birds and we were happy to see first canus for this winter. At the end there were 5 1st winter canus :)  All ringed by Vedran :)

Also there were 7 big gulls ; 5 YLGs and 2 misteries again. And 109 BHGs .
One of the adult YLG had very worn aluminium and colour ring so we replace it. I couldn't find it in my excell tables so we'll know tomorrow when Jelena send me ringing data.. It was ringed May26th 2006 on small island Galun near Krk as pullus by me :) Only one recovery before Jakuševec: June 16th 2010 Kolan, Island of Pag, Croatia..

During ringing we had few drops of rain that were not mentioned in the forecast but we managed to survive :)

Recruitment of  new vampires

All in all it was really nice catch for such a worm day..

Here are misteries:
45BH very dark bird, with dark underwing and streaked rump

47BH big cachinnans male?

Swans

On Wednesday we went to catch some swans on our traditional Drava river tour. It was a bit colder last few days so we thought it will be worth to try. This winter is so mild that you have to make the most of these few cold days.

It was more than 5C so it was very hot :(  First we went to Varaždin and manage to caught 2 swans by hand and after that they were to shy so I used rope for the first time.. It was really easy and fast.

Lorena with her catch ..or other way around :)

After that we went to Prelog where we caught 2 out of 4 swans present. Both were last year birds and two other were old birds with rings...
On Donja Dubrava we cought 2 more with hands and 2 more with rope. This rope is really good :)

Last place we visited was Šoderica near Koprivnica. At first place we stopped we found only two swans which were mating and were not really interested to come near enough to be caught and then come one with Hungarian ring with no fear at all.

Vedran with rope

Zec removing fishing line from the metal ring

After we thought it was over we saw  a flock of maybe 50 swans just few hundred meters from us. There we managed to catch 10 more swans half of them with rope. Thanx Peter for teaching us rope technique :)

All together 18 caught birds. And some 30 rings read, only Croatian and Hungarian.. Much better than it seemed at the beggining.

After Italy, Austria, Hungary and Poland comes..

After Italy, Austria, Hungary and Poland comes..

Yesterday I got really nice recovery!

Vytautas Pareigis sent me few photos of one of our Common Gulls. He found it in Klaipeda-Gedminai in Lithuania:)
It is the very first one of our CGs found in Lithuania and the northernmost recovery of our CGs.

The same bird was seen in Austria  in February 2011.

It was ringed on Jakuševec on December 19th 2010.

so so...

I had great expectations for this Sunday..
It was pretty inexperienced team so I was afraid of too big catch, but..

The net was set at 800.

After half and hour first gulls came. They were really careful and wouldn't settle. Up and down, up and down... After some time we decided to take a catch and at the moment I wanted to press firing button I saw LBBG approaching the catching area..Let's wait few seconds and then they flew away..All of them :( And they didn't come back for 2 hours.. After that they came few times but wouldn't come into the catching area despite the biggest load of sausages ever..

At noon we were already ready to leave but we decided to give it one more try.

 After some problems with circuit we took catch just to ring some birds.. To my surprise we caught 71 birds:) 4 YLG and 67 BHG (including one with Hungarian CR)

Good thing is that the team is getting bigger and that we still need to explore the possibilities of our big net :)

BTW Zec saw T3J7 again :)

Great introduction to weekend

Today I went on Jakuševec to do the IWC and check if there are any ringed gulls .

It was one of the best days ever :) 43 rings read :)

18 Croatian BHG
1 Hungarian BHG (red H13J)
24 Croatian YLG
There were more than 20 000 gulls present.

HG

After the rubbish I went to Savica pond to see if there are any ducks or Coots waiting to be cannon netted :)

I've seen 3 Mute Swans (all 3 with rings and I read all of them) and few Coots..

I got more than 50kg of sausages.. Hope gulls will like them on Sunday.

Nice start of 2012

Yesterday we finally went to Jakuševec on Sunday. We got there around 710. The net was set at 830 and first gulls started arriving at 9. We put lot's of salami in the catching area, like we did last year.. It works :)

We got many gulls in the catching area but couldn't take a catch because of few gulls walking on net.. It was really frustrating and we decided we'll take a catch the moment we have window and safety zone clear even if it were much smaler numbers.. Finally we take a catch and it looked as there were more than 50 guuls :)

When we finished it was nice surprise :

17  YLG
74 BHG
1 Caspian
total 92 gulls colour ringed :)

At 13 we tried to take another catch but there were to many safety issues so we called it a day..

We have to work something with jiggler so it starts to do it's job :)

It was the biggest ever number in one catch.
While waiting Zec and I read one croatian YLG and one white BHG ring from Poland..


Highlight of the day was gull with ring 23BH
Two different functional eyes and also white spot on left p10 and not on right :)
species? shpuld be michahellis..

There were three more I'm not sure of species:
15BH this one should be michahellis

20BH michahellis also..

22BH cachinnans