Response time, Norway Ringing Scheme. (1 Viewer)

My past submissions of Norwegian-ringed gulls have usually received a response within 48 hrs but I have yet to hear anything regarding a Great Black-backed Gull submitted on 18th January. Has anyone else had the same experience recently?

I think they are all volunteers with no paid support. Response times have been very variable. A few years ago we had quite a quick response on a brambling, then over the next several months we heard about a handful that we had ringed, gradually going back in time to about five years before. They obviously had a backlog and were working through from the most recent backwards.

Anyway, perhaps you will just need to be sympathetic to a bunch of folk doing it all in their spare time.

Mike.

citrinella said:

I think they are all volunteers with no paid support. Response times have been very variable. A few years ago we had quite a quick response on a brambling, then over the next several months we heard about a handful that we had ringed, gradually going back in time to about five years before. They obviously had a backlog and were working through from the most recent backwards.

Anyway, perhaps you will just need to be sympathetic to a bunch of folk doing it all in their spare time.

Mike.

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Many thanks for passing on your experience of reporting Norwegian-ringed birds. Not sure I'm entirely in sympathy with the volunteers with no paid support reasoning for the erratic response times. With over 35 years experience of voluntarily undertaking colour-ringing projects in the UK, I am well aware of the importance of a timely response to reported sightings if observers are to be encouraged to continue to submit sightings.

Beyondhope said:

My past submissions of Norwegian-ringed gulls have usually received a response within 48 hrs but I have yet to hear anything regarding a Great Black-backed Gull submitted on 18th January. Has anyone else had the same experience recently?

Click to expand...

citrinella said:

I think they are all volunteers with no paid support. Response times have been very variable. A few years ago we had quite a quick response on a brambling, then over the next several months we heard about a handful that we had ringed, gradually going back in time to about five years before. They obviously had a backlog and were working through from the most recent backwards.

Anyway, perhaps you will just need to be sympathetic to a bunch of folk doing it all in their spare time.

Mike.

Click to expand...

Beyondhope said:

Many thanks for passing on your experience of reporting Norwegian-ringed birds. Not sure I'm entirely in sympathy with the volunteers with no paid support reasoning for the erratic response times. With over 35 years experience of voluntarily undertaking colour-ringing projects in the UK, I am well aware of the importance of a timely response to reported sightings if observers are to be encouraged to continue to submit sightings.

Click to expand...

Just received this information from Nils Helge Lorentzen (via a colleague who also was waiting to hear from Norway). Hopefully, future delay problems solved.

" I’d also like to invite you to try out our online recording of colour ring sightings at www.ringmerking.no/cr . You’ll need to register as user, by hitting the “Register as new user” button. You’ll then automatically get a password sent to your E-mail address. When you are logged in you can enter your sightings, print out life lists, see if there has come any new sightings on the gulls you have seen before and upload photos of them. You can also choose to get an e-mail alert, that tell you when one of the Gulls you've seen has been reported by others.

If you have problems with the site or comments on it send an e-mail to our webmaster Oskar K. Bjørnstad at [email protected] (for technical support) or Nils Helge Lorentzen at [email protected] (sightings)."

If you only submitted on 18 January, it would seem a little early to be criticising/lacking sympathy for the ringing scheme ...it is just two weeks! Could be any number of valid reasons for a response to take longer - not just that already outlined by a previous poster, but the ringing scheme might not even have the data yet - maybe they need to contact the ringer, who may or may not answer quickly, may be on holiday, etc, etc.

Don't know about Norway, but some ringers in some countries (eg me!) submit ringing returns at the end of each year (unless specifically requested for individual data), in which case the ringing centre obviously would not have the information until such a request is made to the rigner concerned.

Think we can all be a little more patient than just two weeks. Right, where is that damn Amazon parcel I am waiting for?

Just tried out the online colour-ring recording website as suggested by Nils Lorentzen. Full ringing details and history instantly made available for a Black-headed Gull seen on 29 January.

Sorted my lack of patience issues, hope Jos Stratford can do the same with Amazon.

Beyondhope said:

Sorted my lack of patience issues, hope Jos Stratford can do the same with Amazon.

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But I must be fair, my parcel is only one day late

Ooh 'thanks' guys. I've just spent 20 minutes ogling all the new sightings of 'my' gulls that have come in since I last checked. Have mercy! I rely on forgetting to check this or I never get work done.