Whos else ended up going bird fair?

[Ukwildlifeo]

Originally Posted by goldie

catching and holding these little birds must cause them some distress and i think it is cruel why do they need to do this sort of thing why dont they just leave the little birds alone without any disturbance

As previously stated the work they carry out is important. The benefits gained from explaining to people about the need to look after our birds will help more than the one bird being shown and ringed, by educating the public.

Also having held the bird in my hand I saw no signs of distress - im not saying it was entirely happy, by the experts know from experience it does no harm

[Cylvain]

i went to the bird fair it was great! And yep spent time liiking at the expensive binos and cameras i met Chris Packham too which was cool So many bird holidays for sale tho.. made me want to go away. But not a lot of my friends are into birding like me and so i was wondering is anyone else in a similar situation and wants to go on one of these holidays but is lacking in birding friends?? what do you do? is there a way of doing it cheaper than paying thousands of pounds?

[Picidae]

Some nice pics there UKwildlifeo - Good pics of Mark Grantham happily doing his stuff. Met him last year when I was attending the BTO Annual Ringing Conference, very nice chappie indeed. (I see SK now has a female body guard to keep the ladies off! )

[valleyforge]

Originally Posted by John

I don't want to upset you but you obviously do not understand why this is done.

First of all ringers are highly trained and are trained for at least two years before they are allowed a licence to ring birds.

There is a great need to do this as it gathers huge amounts of data that can be used to see what happens with our birds. They are rung, weighed and measured, aged and condition of the bird checked, and all this information goes into a data base. Each ring has a number on it and if that bird is caught again (be it in this country or abroad) it tells us what its movements are.

Birds can be tracked down to where they migrate to, what condition they are in and also if the birds return to the same area, again either here or abroad.

You can monitor their movements whilst they are here and also what condition they are in. Dead birds that are found can be analysed and tracked. It also gives up to date information about the possible declines in our our birds and all this from the various ringing stations around the country.

This is a very necessary addition to collating how are birds are doing and without it we would be in the dark on what is happening to our birds.

John

I think I might tend somewhat to side with Goldie's perception here.

I am a longtime BTO member and fully support their program of bird ringing ... however, I'm distressed to see it presented as a spectator sideshow and at an event such as this.

Presumably these birds weren't all (if any) captured at the show site and so consequently have been released in unfamiliar territory.

I would presume also that some numbers of these 'exhibits' were caged somewhere none-too-quiet, until their 'turn' came to be ringed, handled (possibly sometimes quite clumsily in inexperienced hands) and then released in an environment packed with bustling people and goodness knows what other level of background noise. If this exhibit was staged throughout the day, then some of these birds would have been necessarily confined for quite a while.

This is not what I would recognize as good ringing practise, were all effort should be made in ensuring that the capture, ringing, recording and release procedure should be conducted as quickly and in as stress-free a manner as possible.

From the posting and the accompanying photos, it would appear that the welfare of the birds was perhaps a secondary consideration to promoting the activities (and presumably membership) of the BTO.

I'd be surprised if some effort was not made to reduce the stress on the birds, but was it really necessary to stage this sideshow at all? A short film of ringing in the field would surely have been as educational, although perhaps not as entertaining ... but probably only from the human perspective.

I've not been to one of these fairs, as you might have already gathered, but I hadn't expected them to be still quite so medieval in their attitudes to animal welfare.

Please put me right if my analysis is wrong.

[Gill Catton]

I see it as promoting ringing to the conservationists of the future who'd be unlikely to sit down and watch a dry film of the same thing. That one event may have inspired 10-15 children to want to learn more so its worth it in my book.

As I understand it all bird are caught at the venue and are kept quiet until release. I think they are ringed by the experts and only released by the member of the public, I doubt very much that they'd let children loose on tiny warbler bones.
I'd imagine that being caught and ringed at all is extremely stressful, not sure we can get into the head of a small bird and determine that having 10 people standing close by is actually significantly more scarey than one or two. If they really thought the impact would be the death of the bird I doubt they'd still do it.

I'd have thought you'd need to check these things with the BTO before making strong critisim of their methods and motives?

Originally Posted by valleyforge

I think I might tend somewhat to side with Goldie's perception here.

I am a longtime BTO member and fully support their program of bird ringing ... however, I'm distressed to see it presented as a spectator sideshow and at an event such as this.

Presumably these birds weren't all (if any) captured at the show site and so consequently have been released in unfamiliar territory.

I would presume also that some numbers of these 'exhibits' were caged somewhere none-too-quiet, until their 'turn' came to be ringed, handled (possibly sometimes quite clumsily in inexperienced hands) and then released in an environment packed with bustling people and goodness knows what other level of background noise. If this exhibit was staged throughout the day, then some of these birds would have been necessarily confined for quite a while.

This is not what I would recognize as good ringing practise, were all effort should be made in ensuring that the capture, ringing, recording and release procedure should be conducted as quickly and in as stress-free a manner as possible.

From the posting and the accompanying photos, it would appear that the welfare of the birds was perhaps a secondary consideration to promoting the activities (and presumably membership) of the BTO.

I'd be surprised if some effort was not made to reduce the stress on the birds, but was it really necessary to stage this sideshow at all? A short film of ringing in the field would surely have been as educational, although perhaps not as entertaining ... but probably only from the human perspective.

I've not been to one of these fairs, as you might have already gathered, but I hadn't expected them to be still quite so medieval in their attitudes to animal welfare.

Please put me right if my analysis is wrong.

[valleyforge]

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

I'd have thought you'd need to check these things with the BTO before making strong critisim of their methods and motives?

No ... actually, I don't generally have an urge to check with anyone before being critical ... but then again I was merely inviting comment on a different way of perceiving this event ... from the side of the birds involved.

[John]

The ringing is done a little away from where the Birdfair is and is for the most part relatively quiet (in relative terms)

I am with valleyforge to a degree. I too am uncomfortable with busy ringing sites and the stress it can bring to birds but for the most part bird ringing isn't like that and is done well away from the public eye, hence the lack of info Goldie was working with.

It is not that well publicised and any chance that can bring youngsters alongside with what the benefits ringing can bring is to be used (not abused I might add).

Regarding ringing in front of the public. I well remember a well known bird ringing site in Alvor, Portugal. They go out of their way to make sure that members of the public watch what is going on and the benefits are obvious. It certainly made an impression on me when I first went there and the knowledge I picked up from that was invaluable.

John

[Jenny W]

The British ringing scheme is one of the best and most respected in the world and because of the highly trained and skilled ringers involved and the fact that the welfare of the birds is the first and foremost concern

[Ukwildlifeo]

Originally Posted by valleyforge

I think I might tend somewhat to side with Goldie's perception here.

I am a longtime BTO member and fully support their program of bird ringing ... however, I'm distressed to see it presented as a spectator sideshow and at an event such as this.

Presumably these birds weren't all (if any) captured at the show site and so consequently have been released in unfamiliar territory.

I would presume also that some numbers of these 'exhibits' were caged somewhere none-too-quiet, until their 'turn' came to be ringed, handled (possibly sometimes quite clumsily in inexperienced hands) and then released in an environment packed with bustling people and goodness knows what other level of background noise. If this exhibit was staged throughout the day, then some of these birds would have been necessarily confined for quite a while.

This is not what I would recognize as good ringing practise, were all effort should be made in ensuring that the capture, ringing, recording and release procedure should be conducted as quickly and in as stress-free a manner as possible.

From the posting and the accompanying photos, it would appear that the welfare of the birds was perhaps a secondary consideration to promoting the activities (and presumably membership) of the BTO.

I'd be surprised if some effort was not made to reduce the stress on the birds, but was it really necessary to stage this sideshow at all? A short film of ringing in the field would surely have been as educational, although perhaps not as entertaining ... but probably only from the human perspective.

I've not been to one of these fairs, as you might have already gathered, but I hadn't expected them to be still quite so medieval in their attitudes to animal welfare.

Please put me right if my analysis is wrong.

The birds were caught on site, I saw the net from a distance, which was tucked away from the crowds in an area away from the path. The bto display was well away from the main area and only had people coming to see the bto display and nip past to one of the hides if I remember correctly.

And the reaction from the kids and adults more than justifies any stress to the birds

[JoulesH]

Valleyforge I cannot believe that you can make such public assumptions and cast such slurs on the integrity of those who were doing the ringing which included the head of the ringing team, Mark Grantham.

They usually have ringing at the Birdfair, there this was not a 'first', but there was a bigger accompanying stand due to it being centenary year.

The ringer who rings on my farm and is a close friend of mine set up the
ringing at Rutland Water and was there on Fri and Sat and I also know some of the others who were there. He is a volunteer who regularly gets up at 4am to ring throughout the summer and he has loved birds since a boy.

I can assure you that this ringer only ever follows best practice (and remember the boss was there too) - he is a very experienced ringer. He has trained many others and seen them through to their licences, and is also an independent assessor of other trainee ringers. At all times the welfare of birds is paramount. Birds were caught on site in mist nets in the usual way - the nets are only unfurled on the day (the poles having been set up on Thursday) and ringers are returning to the nets regularly to painstakingly release the birds, which are immediately put into small cloth drawbags to keep them calm and free from harm. They are then ringed, weighed etc and all the recording done before being released back to their own territory within a few minutes. It is a common occurance for a visitor /observer to be offered the chance to release a bird, although of course most ringing is done in the middle of nowhere at ungodly hours when there are lots of birds about. The bird is usually placed in their hand by the ringer in the correct ringers grip and they are shown how to release the bird so that it flies away. As you can see from the comments above it can really bring people closer to birds and be a very memorable experience for them, especially children and it can cultivate a lifetime passion for birds.

Goldie why don't you contact the BTO and ask to meet a ringer near to you and you can go out with them and get to understand what they are doing and why. It is also an amazing way to get up close and personal with birds and to see how beautiful something like a dunnock or greenfinch is. Don't forget before ringing proved where swallows go, people used to believe that they spent the winter in the bottom of ponds. This is a good starting point to learn about ringing www.bto.org/ringing