December 20
Connor and I have just spent the morning participating in the Edmonton Christmas Bird Count. On this day, birders spread out across assigned zones to try to count the number of birds. The results are tallied and then compared to previous years. This goes on in communities around the world. We didn’t see anything unusual but helped out with the count.
Another way birders can help is when they photograph a bird with a band (or ring as it is called in Europe). If you can read the ring, you can submit the data to a database and get the info back on it. I saw this Mediterranean Gull on the same beach in Javia twice: once in October (top) and in February (bottom). In the first image , it has winter plumage and in the second, it is just starting to get its black head for the summer.
I found out it had been ringed in Senoy Volensky, North Moravia, Czechia on June 5 2016. as a chick. That is about 1900 km from Javia.
The bottom image is a bird in breeding plumage. They look similar to our Franklin’s and Bonaparte’s Gulls.
Stay well !
