Blackpool-headed Gulls...

With family up in Blackpool I make the pilgrimage to Lancashire and the Fylde Bird Club recording area annually, often at Christmas.

Walks through Stanley Park have become a post-pandemic tradition. The park provides great birding, with congregations of gulls and wintering wildfowl in particular. The bird feeders also attract a great selection of woodland birds, notably Nuthatch. Ring-necked Parakeet seem to have become increasingly common over the last few years too.

I take a lot of pleasure in reading colour rings, predominantly Black-headed Gulls, but I’ve also seen ringed Herring Gulls and Mute Swans there. The rings have been applied by the Waterbird colour-marking group, with some 2,450 birds ringed and over 16,300 resulting sightings. A proportion of which are mine from Stanley Park jaunts.

Most of the birds reported this year loaf about Stanley Park itself, with few if any reports from elsewhere.

One bird ‘219E’ has had annual forays down to Poole Park, Dorset the last three summers. Presumably joining a breeding colony there.

The star of the show, however, was ‘2J52’. This little beaut was ringed as an adult up in the Lake District back in 2008 and has since made forays down to Lincolnshire back in 2019 and most excitingly for me; Norfolk last year.

Norfolk sightings include Sheringham, Scolt Head and Blakeney Point. Blakeney Point is particularly hallowed ground, with many fond memories crunching the shingle with friends.

In writing this I also noticed the scientific name ‘ridibundus’ which is the Latin name for ‘laughing’ or ‘laughing a lot’ it's also used in the scientific name for Marsh Frog. Who knew!