After over ninety years of
bird ringing in Britain and Ireland, we are continuing to discover new facts
about migration routes and wintering areas. However, the main focus of the
Ringing scheme today is the monitoring of bird populations. Ringing allows us to
study how many young birds leave the nest and survive to become adults as well
as how many adults survive the stresses of breeding, migration and severe
weather.
Changes in survival rates and other aspects of bird's biology help us to
understand the causes of population declines. Such information is so important for
conservation that the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) runs two special projects to collect
this data.
The Constant Effort Sites (CES)
Scheme provides information on population size, breeding success and survival of
bird species living in scrub and wetland habitats. Ringers work at over 130
sites each year. The Re-trapping Adults for Survival (RAS) project gathers
survival data for a wide range of species, particularly those of current
conservation concern.
Ringing allowed us to show that declines in the number of Sedge Warblers breeding in Britain and Ireland was
linked to lower levels of rainfall in their African wintering quarters. We have
also found that the recent dramatic decline in the numbers of Song Thrushes has
been caused by a reduction in the survival rate of young birds. This information
will help us identify the environmental factors responsible for the decline.
Ringing
in Britain and Ireland.
The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) organizes the
British and Irish Ringing Scheme. Around 800,000 birds are ringed in Britain and
Ireland each year by just over 2,000 trained ringers, most of whom are
volunteers. On average fewer than one out of fifty birds ringed is subsequently
reported to the BTO, so every report of a ringed bird is of value.
More about the BTO
Does ringing affect the birds?
The simple answer is no. It
is essential that birds are not affected unduly by the fitting and wearing of a
ring; if they were, ringing would not tell us how normal birds behave. Many
studies have shown that birds ringed during the breeding season quickly return
to incubating eggs, or feeding chicks, once they are released, and long distance
migrants continue to travel thousands of miles between breeding and wintering
grounds.
Birds will not be affected
as long as ringing is carried out by skilled ringers with the utmost
consideration for the birds welfare. It is not surprising that ringing has
little effect on birds because, relative to a bird’s weight, a ring is similar
to a wristwatch on a human.
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How are birds caught for ringing?
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