In July I took a boat trip from Amble, in Northumbria, UK, out to Coquet Island to see the Roseate Terns that nest there. It was a nice, one hour, boat trip that gave me good views of lots of Roseate Terns feeding their chicks as well as plenty of Puffins, Kittiwakes, Razorbills, Guillemots, Sandwich Terns and Arctic Terns. I took lots of photos of as many birds as I could and as we drifted back into the harbour I took a lot of shots of various gulls but it was not until I checked the photos later on that I noticed something interesting about a photograph of a Great Black-backed Gull.

At a first glance there did not seem to be anything interesting about this photograph and I was on the verge of deleting this shot until I zoomed in a little to notice that the bird had a colour ring on its left leg. This was the only shot I got of this individual but as my luck was in the angle I got allowed the code on the ring to be read, T:043.

Using the website European Colour Ring Birding Website I found out that this bird was ringed as part of a project in Northeast Scotland and I have reported it to the project manager although I have not yet received any further information. This just shows the value of checking seemingly useless photos before deleting them and I would continue to encourage birders to report colour ringed birds as I have done in other blog posts:

• Reporting a ringed Mediterranean Gull
• Ringed Black-headed Gull – British Birding
• A Ringed Herring Gull – British Birding
• Reporting Ringed Birds – British Birding