Last month I posted some photos of a banded/ringed adult non-breeding Mediterranean Gull Larus melanocephalus taken at Radipole Lake RSPB Reserve in Weymouth, UK. I could only make out a few characters on the band, but it did appear that the gull had been banded in Belgium and that part of the band - containing a key letter and the numbers that would be unique to this band and therefore this gull - contained an E followed by the digits 55

A quick search on the internet took me to http://home.scarlet.be/~pin02658/cr-MediterraGull.htm, a page containing more information on banded Mediterranean Gulls that you could possibly think existed and the email address of Renaud Flamant who has been diligently banding Med Gulls for years.

I emailed Renaud who suggested I go back through the original photos I took to see if I could pick out any more digits - which I did (I have too much spare time) and which revealed that the sequence was E915538. A few more emails later and it turned out that this sequence belonged to a bird banded by Renaud himself in “Noordelijk insteekdok” in the harbour area of Antwerp, Belgium on May 31st this year:

Renaud also copied in another British-based birder, Chris Gladman, who lives in the coastal resort of Minehead in Somerset, because ‘E915538′ turns out to be a well-watched (and well-travelled) European avian!

Chris had actually found Renaud’s gull on Dunster Beach (Minehead) on the 4th of August and then seen it again (at both Dunster and the nearby Blue Anchor beaches) on another six occasions over the next five weeks (his last sighting was on 11th Sept). The gull had then disappeared and not been seen again until I found it several hundred kilometres away to the south-east (perhaps making its way back towards Belgium or northern France?) at Radipole. (Incidentally, ‘E915538′ is the second banded gull that Chris has seen at the Blue Anchor beach in Somerset that has subsequently been seen at Radipole - is a pattern emerging perhaps?)

The image below maps the three locations ‘E915538′ has been seen in. I’ve not drawn any connecting lines between the three areas as it’s impossible to know which route (eg overland or along the coast) the gull would have taken to get either to Somerset from Belgium or to Dorset from Somerset.

So, after a spring spent in Belgium ‘E915538′ flew west to Somerset (making how many stops en-route?) for the summer and then down to Dorset for the autumn/fall. It’s not a full biography by any means, but I find it fascinating and strangely heart-warming that three people who have never met have co-operated and been able to track its movements like this. Perhaps now that this lovely gull has been given the 10,000 Birds star treatment and has its own little corner on our blog any other sightings of it can be rounded up and more of the gaps/lines filled in.

If you do see this bird please consider contacting Renaud (renaud.flamant -AT- skynet -DOT- be) and copying me in (I’ll pass on any details to Chris). Thanks.

(Many thanks to both Renaud Flamant and Chris Gladman for permission to post the information provided in this short note.)