I have just been Bird ringing

[colinaj]

I have just been bird ringing. No not me personally but I was invited to observe a licensed bird ringer at work today. I learnt so much about ageing and sexing birds that with the excellent quality of optical equipment used in the 21st century what I picked up there has revolutionised my birding in the field.
First winter birds or in layman’s terms the teenagers of the bird world exhibits pointed tail feathers. Great, because now my Robins and Dunnocks (Birds that are confiding) are assigned ages, which of course to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) this information is needed to judge how the breeding birds have succeeded year by year and when they need to organise press releases if a certain species is declining.

Did you know that young Dunnocks have a “muddy brown eye” and the adults have a red eye? Also teenage Dunnocks have a paler bill? This information is fantastic. If it is quiet on your patch then why not search out these birds and have a good old look and see if you can age them. Although only seen in the hand young Robins have an orange colour inside of the bill.

Interesting too was that by blowing onto the birds breast feathers ornithologists can see if the bird have got any fat n the breast bone and again it is a sure fire way to see if there is plenty of food around.

As I say it has brought a whole new meaning to my birding and of course this bird ringing is so important to the big picture of things, remember the Blackbird who flew to Devon and back each winter to Thetford?

Now a funny but true tale of ringing. A woman once rang the Police to say that a man was catching birds in a net and dying them to sell them on as Budgies.
He was in fact catching birds in what is known as a mist net (Safe and totally harmless to the birds) to ring them (Put a BTO ring on the leg which is again harmless to the bird)

To find out more look up the BTO web site at BTO Home page

This also informs the layperson about bird ringing much better than I could.

Colin.

[baronsdale]

I've always fancied attending a bird ringing. Like you say it's a great way to get to see the birds close up and get some knowledge from the licensed ringers.

I think they used to do ringing at Languard Bird Observatory in Felixstowe, not sure if they still do.

Steve

[Lincs Yellowbelly]

One of our local bird ringers is doing a talk next month which should be very interesting it's something which has always facinated me, definatly a very worthy exercise

[Ollie]

Some fascinating facts on how to tell the age of a bird Colin. I will definitely be looking to see if I can put any of this into practice in the field. Thanks for sharing with us
Roger