[pratincol]

Reading a blog from a ringer today saying how many birds he had caught made me think.
Is all this catching birds in nets and traps necessary?
I know ringers will argue it gives us vital information about bird movements,lifespans,condition of the birds etc.
But when we already have so much information is it absolutely imperitive we are catching say 40 Greenfinch as I read today.How much more information do we need to learn about Greenfinches for example?
I wonder if in some cases its more for the benefit of the ringers because its their pastime and perhaps their competetive hobby to catch as many birds as possible.Are they doing it for the birds or for more selfish reasons?
It can't be much fun for the poor birds being trapped in a net then put in a bag before being man handled.To add to the ordeal a metal ring is put on its leg which it will have to carry around for the rest of its life.
Would the ringers like to be treated like this and forced to have a metal ring around their leg forever?

[Ratal]

I'm in your camp. Sure ringing may be necessary for some species, but the vast majority do not sit well with my views of 'leave it the hell alone if it's wild'. This then gets onto the satellite tagging of birds of prey, Osprey and Red Kites up here sport a bright yellow monstrosity and I often wonder how much is science, and how much is a cute revenue raiser for those who tagged and share that info out?

On an aside, I'd love to see the aerodynamic studies done on these tags and their effect on a bird's ability ability to hunt.

[Tideliner]

Yes we have a lot of information of birds movements from ringing , but we live in a changing world and ringing highlights how birds adapt to these changes so the results we have today may not hold true in the future. As for the effect on the birds , I suspect it has more effect on humans than birds. I no longer ring , but in the past i have had the same ducks entering cage traps week after week for months on end only to be queing up to be retrapped when they return the following winter. They seemed to accept being caught as a trade off for a belly full of food.

Ringing not only gives us information on movements , but also on mortality and many other aspects of their behaviour all subject to change over time.

As for revenue , all ringing is carried out at the ringers expence and rings are very expencive. I used to ring back in the 1990s 6-800 of ducks a year at a cost of
50P per ring. Plus the cost of the traps at several hundred pounds , grain for feed ( about 4 tons a year ) and sundary ringing equipement.

Properly fitted rings\tags have no effect on on the birds that carry them. If they did there would be no point in ringing the birds in the first place as you would be getting false results. The weight of a ring is of little importance to the bird , its daily weight gain and loss is likely to be far more than the weight of a ring. It probably has the same impact as a wedding ring on your finger.

I would guess your objections are mainly asetic , in other words you just do not like to see birds with rings\tags even though the information gathered could be vital for the species future in a modern worls.

[jpoyner]

Are we certain that strapping a piece of electronics to a bird's back has no effect itself on the bird's ability to navigate? It is known birds have the ability to sense the extremely weak magnetic field of the earth and use this, yet any live electronic circuitry strapped to the bird could surely produce interference which affects this.

I would love to get an answer to this question, so far I am unable to find one. If it is proven that electronics in close proximity to the birds body can affect it's ability to navigate using the earths magnetic field, then the data is useless. Is there any research on this? We seem to be collecting data with a big unanswered question.

I know there are many sat tagged birds which appear to migrate quite normally, so it could be argued it doesn't, however there are also well known cases of Ospreys which have headed off on crazy routes out in to the Atlantic to their doom......natural, or sent to it by the piece of electronics on their backs?

[jpoyner]

Originally Posted by Ratal

I'm in your camp. Sure ringing may be necessary for some species, but the vast majority do not sit well with my views of 'leave it the hell alone if it's wild'. This then gets onto the satellite tagging of birds of prey, Osprey and Red Kites up here sport a bright yellow monstrosity and I often wonder how much is science, and how much is a cute revenue raiser for those who tagged and share that info out?

On an aside, I'd love to see the aerodynamic studies done on these tags and their effect on a bird's ability ability to hunt.

I have always been in the anti wing tag camp....I think the things are a monstrosity and an intrusion. Thousands of years of evolution to produce the perfect aerodynamic feather and wing structure for flight and we add a flapping piece of plastic to it claiming it has little or no effect....make up your own mind!

[TheBirdGarden]

You couldn't get news like this otherwise

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-19273768

[John Cantelo]

I confess to feeling a little conflicted when I see a tagged bird - on an aesthetic level I find it an irritation, but I am also excited by the prospect of finding out a little about the bird - where it was born, where it's been, etc. However, I recognise that the potential benefit that can arise from tagging birds is infinitely more importatnt than my petty sensibilities. As to whether the birds suffer any disadvantage from wearing a tag, everything I've read suggests not. When in moult with bedraggled wings such birds obviously cope well so a small tag can't be a significant difficulty. Nor am I aware of any disadvantage that tagged birds suffer when breeding (and when success rate can be compared to untagged birds.

With regard to radio tagging there is again no evidence that it causes any problems - radio tagged cranes, for example, have no difficulty in navigating to and from breeding/wintering areas and do not experience a greater rate of loss compared to non-tagged birds. Even if there were some very marginal individual disadvantage (and there's no evidence that this is the case), this would have to be weighed against the incalcuable advantage thus provided to conservation efforts to protect whole populations. Radio tagging provides information of a kind quite impossible with other methods.

As for conventional ringing, some ringers may possibly be motivated by less than admirable feelings of competition, one-up manship etc., but this scarcely matters if the data thus obtained is noted and used.

[phil baber]

Originally Posted by jpoyner

It is known birds have the ability to sense the extremely weak magnetic field of the earth and use this, yet any live electronic circuitry strapped to the bird could surely produce interference which affects this.

The Earth's magnetic field is pretty freakin strong, and stops our atmosphere being torn off the Planet by solar storms.
It's also the reason we get solar firework displays North and South.
I think you may be watching the audience, and not the gig...

Your theory is wrong. If it were correct, this subtle technology would've stopped Cuckoos being tracked all the way back from GB to their Winter grounds in Africa...and back again...

Science is proven data= fact. Conjecture is un-proven fact=only conjecture. Which is why it remains conjecture.

Ringing is also the search for facts. The more birds ringed, the higher the possibility of information return. Although, obviously, returns are low, but each has its enormous value.

The more information we receive from these practises, the more the individual welfare of these species can be safe-guarded for the future. On their breeding/wintering grounds, and on migration.

Sometimes, we have to understand, that as a pestilent species on this planet, we can intelligently safe-guard those that we would destroy if such ornithological practises did not exist.

Rant over...

[GraemeS]

Can I respond to the rant, as a scientist?

Firstly, a rant was sorely over the top. The poster raised a concern and was perfectly entitled to do so. Science encourages it.

Secondly, science is not fact, it is a an accumalution of theories that have not been disproved.
Thirdly, I agree that the relative strength of the Earth's magnetic field and the lack of data showing adverse affects (to my knowledge) suggests to me that tags do not affect birds' ability to navigate.

[SueO]

I think all of the above should be outlawed. I'm so tired of seeing images of banders waving the poor birds around like cigarettes at a 1950's cocktail party. If that's not bad enough, I see many of them have their kids involved. Who made these people rulers of the birds that should be free and belong to everyone. How many wings, legs, whatevers are broken? How many birds already suffering stress from long migrations suffer more because they are caught in a mist net? The radio or gps things stuck on birds are monstrousities and in my opinion, animal cruelty. Leave the poor things alone.

[Tarsiger]

Originally Posted by SueO

I think all of the above should be outlawed. I'm so tired of seeing images of banders waving the poor birds around like cigarettes at a 1950's cocktail party. If that's not bad enough, I see many of them have their kids involved. Who made these people rulers of the birds that should be free and belong to everyone. How many wings, legs, whatevers are broken? How many birds already suffering stress from long migrations suffer more because they are caught in a mist net? The radio or gps things stuck on birds are monstrousities and in my opinion, animal cruelty. Leave the poor things alone.

I would defend everyone's right to have an opinion but this is drivel; clearly you have no interest whatsoever in bird conservation!

[ChrisKten]

Birds don't know they're being ringed, they assume they're going to be eaten (prove me wrong). It's no less stressful for the bird than being pinned down by a Sparrowhawk (although not as painful). When a ringed bird is released, it assumes that it had a lucky escape. So it must be very stressful for a bird to be caught, handled, measured, and ringed.

OTOH, I know of no other way to keep track of wild birds, and I would hope that the information acquired helps the species as a whole, or will in the future. It doesn't matter what the rings/tags look like to us, it only matters if it has an adverse effect on the bird, and I've seen no evidence that it does.

[John Cantelo]

Originally Posted by SueO

I think all of the above should be outlawed. I'm so tired of seeing images of banders waving the poor birds around like cigarettes at a 1950's cocktail party. If that's not bad enough, I see many of them have their kids involved. Who made these people rulers of the birds that should be free and belong to everyone. How many wings, legs, whatevers are broken? How many birds already suffering stress from long migrations suffer more because they are caught in a mist net? The radio or gps things stuck on birds are monstrousities and in my opinion, animal cruelty. Leave the poor things alone.

Your heart is so obviously in the right place that I find it hard to be too critical, but what you propose would be very damaging indeed to our understanding of birds and thus our ability to protect them. This is not,I imagine, an outcome that you would support.

In the long run such a proposal could be far more inimicable to birdlife than activies which I am sure you'd abhor(controlled harvesting of Gannets say). A useful parallel to consider might be the innoculation of children - they may scream and cry over the injection, but the long term benefits utterly negate any worries about the small short term distress.

Our aesthetic sensibilities shouldn't come into the equation and nor should a well meant excess of sentimentality. As for the involvement of children, I know many youngsters have had an interest in birds stimulated by involvement in ringing and have grown into strong defenders of the environment thereby. That is not to say that there aren't occasional abuses or that all ringers always have the welfare of the bird at the forefront of their minds. However, to outlaw these methods would be to hamstring science and to make opposition to many detrimental schemes far harder to justify.

[James Emerson]

Originally Posted by pratincol

But when we already have so much information is it absolutely imperitive we are catching say 40 Greenfinch as I read today.How much more information do we need to learn about Greenfinches for example?

I don't think anyone has yet made the point about ringing data. Ringers measure biometrics when a bird is caught, but often what is useful is to find out where the bird goes. Whilst radio trackers can send information remotely, and large tags can be read by birders in the field, small rings on passerines can usually only be read again if the bird is re-trapped somewhere else, or if the bird is found dead and the person finding it sends in the details of the ring. So if you ring 40 Greenfinches, you may only get data from one or two of those birds (reporting rates vary, but they are very low!).

Also in response to the person who said that children are involved etc. - in Britain ringing is licenced by the BTO. There are different types of licence, when you start you have to be supervised by a more experienced ringer and taught how to extract birds from a net, how to hold them etc. Until you have demonstrated good practice and got to a certain type of licence you cannot trap and ring birds on your own. Whilst there are sometimes public demonstrations, most ringing is done at private sites or observatories so birds are processed quickly and not shown around to the public.

Regards,
James

[peckham]

Of course it`s not necessary, there can be no scientific reason for ringing the local small bird population which I warrant makes up the bulk of trappings-witnessed by the amount of ringed blue tits on my local reserves.

[George London]

I'm with Chris (or my interpretation, which is that yes it must be stressful but the positives outweigh the negatives).

I saw some crested coots this summer at Albufera in Mallorca... They had quite large rings round there necks which I thought was very odd. They didn't like them at all and constantly pecked at them. Presume this was because their legs are often in the water, but it seemed a little OTT when it would probably be possible with patience to get the data off their legs.

Tideliner re your post on expenses etc, got me to thinking how does one get into ringing (not that I am about to start). Are licences required etc? What is the process you have to undergo before becoming a 'Ringer'? Is it thorough (imagine it varies by country)? How many licensed 'ringers' would you say there are in the UK? Does information get passed on to a central international database? If I see a ringed bird and clock the number is there a central organisation I can report the data to? How is it all regulated?

George

[Mark Newsome]

Originally Posted by peckham

Of course it`s not necessary, there can be no scientific reason for ringing the local small bird population which I warrant makes up the bulk of trappings-witnessed by the amount of ringed blue tits on my local reserves.

Have a read of the facts given on the BTO website; they provide many answers and scientific reasons as to why continuation of ringing is useful.
http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys...ringing-scheme

Maybe the Blue Tits on your reserves are not actually local - could they be continental birds you're seeing in winter? Or maybe they have survived in the same area for several years without moving more than a few miles? You can never guess scientific evidence, which forms the basis for monitoring populations, which feeds into all aspects of conservation etc.

Have a look at the picture built up for Blue Tits over the years in the link below. Even very common species can prove interesting! (or at least to me they are).
http://blx1.bto.org/ring/countyrec/r...ec14620all.htm

Mark

[Jos Stratford]

Originally Posted by SueO

How many wings, legs, whatevers are broken? How many birds already suffering stress from long migrations suffer more because they are caught in a mist net? The radio or gps things stuck on birds are monstrousities and in my opinion, animal cruelty. Leave the poor things alone.

Originally Posted by Tarsiger

I would defend everyone's right to have an opinion but this is drivel; clearly you have no interest whatsoever in bird conservation!

With respect Tarsiger, SueO's concerns are not drivel, but valid concerns. Ringing does expose birds to risks, casulties do occur, even more so in countries where standards are perhaps lower than those, for example, in the UK (which most persons posting on here so far are basing their experience).

Not in the UK, but I have observed ringing where extremely large quantities of birds are being caught and processed with little care to individual welfare of the birds. 20-30birds or more of mixed species unloaded from traps and packed together into small carrying cases, these manhandled with little attention. Processing not including biometrics, nor with ringing pliers, etc. Birds released by being thrown into the air, any that land on the ground not tended to. On top of this, traps not closed at night, nor mist nets furled correctly. Morning visits to the locations occasionally finding dead birds before the rigers arrive.

Ringing certanly plays an important contribution to our knowledge, but I think all ringers should periodically ask themself if the ringing they are doing is truly furthering useful knowledge and whether it outweighs potential negative aspects.

[Adam W]

Originally Posted by ChrisKten

Birds don't know they're being ringed, they assume they're going to be eaten (prove me wrong). It's no less stressful for the bird than being pinned down by a Sparrowhawk (although not as painful). When a ringed bird is released, it assumes that it had a lucky escape. So it must be very stressful for a bird to be caught, handled, measured, and ringed.

Fair point but would a bird actually suffer any lasting effects if it were to be pinned down by a sparrowhawk but make a lucky escape? I suspect it would very quickly simply carry on with life as normal as it cant really afford to do anything else,which is what i suspect happens as soon as a bird is ringed then released.

[chris butterworth]

Originally Posted by John Cantelo

Our aesthetic sensibilities shouldn't come into the equation and nor should a well meant excess of sentimentality.

With respect to those opposed to ringing / tagging wild birds I think John has hit the nail squarely on the head. Aesthetics and sentimentality tend to hamper scientific work in the natural world. I work with molluscs and, try as we might, there is no way to identify slugs without dissecting them and checking their genitalia ( it's the same with many other orders of invertebrate ). There have been many calls for entomologists etc. to be banned from collecting samples for just these reasons, but until we devise other ways of gathering data / IDing species, it's the only thing we have left. If the opponents of ringing / tagging can come up with a less intrusive way of gathering data then I, for one, would welcome any suggestions.

Chris

[ChrisKten]

Originally Posted by Adam W

Fair point but would a bird actually suffer any lasting effects if it were to be pinned down by a sparrowhawk but make a lucky escape? I suspect it would very quickly simply carry on with life as normal as it cant really afford to do anything else,which is what i suspect happens as soon as a bird is ringed then released.

I used the Sparrowhawk example as I have close views of many attacks, and any bird that has a "lucky escape" doesn't "very quickly simply carry on with life as normal". The bird quickly makes for cover, and stays there shivering with shock until it recovers. The time taken depends on the individual bird.

(Oh, and Sparrowhawks pin down their prey by inserting their talons, so many that escape (Sparrowhawk spooked and not a good enough hold to take the bird with it) don't survive anyway. So it's a bit different in that way, but I suspect no different for the bird; which is what I posted. The ringer will know that the aim is to release the bird unharmed, but the bird doesn't.)

[ChrisKten]

Originally Posted by chris butterworth

With respect to those opposed to ringing / tagging wild birds I think John has hit the nail squarely on the head. Aesthetics and sentimentality tend to hamper scientific work in the natural world. I work with molluscs and, try as we might, there is no way to identify slugs without dissecting them and checking their genitalia ( it's the same with many other orders of invertebrate ). There have been many calls for entomologists etc. to be banned from collecting samples for just these reasons, but until we devise other ways of gathering data / IDing species, it's the only thing we have left. If the opponents of ringing / tagging can come up with a less intrusive way of gathering data then I, for one, would welcome any suggestions.

Chris

Just my luck that I've been wrong my whole life; there is such a thing as Reincarnation, and I'll come back as a Slug and someone will want to ID me

[George London]

Originally Posted by chris butterworth

there is no way to identify slugs without dissecting them and checking their genitalia ( it's the same with many other orders of invertebrate ).

Chris

different species different size? Poor little fellas!

[Tideliner]

George , to become a fully qualified ringer takes usually 3-5 years. You start as a helper , which is someone who basically goes along to see what ringing is about and maybe allowed to hold a bird or two under the direct supervision of the ringer. You then apply to the BTO for a trainee licence which allows you to ring birds under the supervision of a ringing trainer. After 1-2 years when you have ringed about 1000 birds of a wide variety ( around 50 species ) as a trainee your trainer can recommend you are checked by an independent ringer ( not your trainer ) and are expected to go on a course for several days you can apply for a C permit. This allows you to ring alone , but you may have restrictions in the number of nets you use , age of birds you can ring or species or methods you use to catch birds. During this period you will be checked from time to time by your trainer. After another year or two and as you gain a wide experience in ringing you can then apply for a full A ringing licence.

You will have to buy your own equipment and at £50 a mist net it comes quite expensive to set up everything. I used to spend about £1000 a year on rings and equipment. There is a disciplinary board which you will have to answer to if you break any of the terms of your licence or show disregard for the birds welfare. Jos has said he has seen birds being thrown into the air , do that in this country and it will be a good way to lose your licence though if is allowed to gently lob a few species such as swifts into the air as they have a trouble taking off from the ground. The whole ringing scheme is run by the BTO under control of DEFRA. I am not sure how many ringers there today , but including traniees , C and A ringers it was about 2000 a few years ago.

All information is sent into to the BTO data base and is extensively used by conservation bodies and government departments.


And remember ringing is done by people who are birdwatchers so have the welfare of the bird at heart.

[Tideliner]

Look on the bright side Chris , if you come back as a slug the quicker you get diss ected the quicker you are recarnated again , perhaps this time as something more interesting.