THORPE MARSHES: Gull rings and birds of prey

Mid December 2022

Whilst the rest of the family were in the city I popped to Thorpe for an hour or so. I started at the river green to look for ringed Black-headed Gulls. Rather disappointingly I didn't see any foreign ringed birds (in previous years two yellow ringed Polish birds have been easy to see here plus occasional others) but I did see at least six locally ringed birds, successfully reading the codes of four of them (remember you can report UEA ringed gulls here for an instant life history: Seen one of our birds? – Waterbird Colour-marking Group (waterbirdcolourmarking.org))

I then had a quick look around Thorpe Marshes. A Buzzard flew in and landed in a dead tree, whilst further round I also got good views of a Kestrel perched up along the edge of the path. A Green Woodpecker also flew onto a nearby tree, although unfortunately a walker came past shortly afterwards and it flew off towards the railway line.