Feeding Station 2

I called at our Turnstone feeding station this morning where I share feeding duties with Ian and dropped another bucket of 'Terry' food off. There were about 50 Turnstones knocking around the grassed area and as soon as I put the food out, they were ready to come in.

What happens first though, as the following three pictures illustrate, is that the Herring Gulls, with some Black-headed Gulls, come in first and start picking through the food. As the mix is predominantly seed based, with suet pellets, fat balls & meal worms mixed in, they soon move off. The Black-headed Gulls dominate the feeding area now and the Turnstones hang around the edge of the Gulls knowing that it is their turn soon. Some will run in and try and take food from in between the Black-headed Gull's legs. Once the Black-headed Gulls have finished the Turnstones move in, with perhaps the odd Starling, and finish off.

I managed to read the ring number of a 2CY Herring Gull this morning by taking pictures from different angles and then blowing the images up on my computer. GR56992 anyone? My guess is that it is from one of the breeding colonies at either Walney, Bowland or the Ribble. Anyway it's safely logged on IPMR so I will find out in due course.  I also managed to re-sight 11 of our leg-flagged birds.

I'll be wearing my folk-rock hat later as I am off to see the mighty Fairport Convention in concert this evening!