It’s a bird which was colour-ringed ringed at Harewood Whin landfill
site, to the west of York, (53.960 -1.177). The bird was caught using a Cannon
Net and is one of around 2500 Gulls which were caught and colour ringed over a
3year period from March 2015.
Harewood Whin was one of the decreasing number of Landfill sites in the
UK where it was possible to operate for the catching and ringing of gulls. The
landfill site has now closed and no longer attracts large number of Gulls.
Whilst with us the gulls used to feed on the Landfill site during the day and
roost on the floods in Lower Derwent Valley National Nature Reserve or on the
Humber Estuary.One of the main reasons for carrying out this work was to examine if and how the movements of Gulls altered with the closure of the Landfill site which used to be a major food source throughout the year.
To date there have been over 1500 sightings reported from as far apart as the Barents Sea and Morocco.
The bird was rung on 28th July 2017 and yours is the first sighting since it was rung
I hope you find this of interest and many thanks for taking the time to report your sighting.
Best Regards, Mike Jackson