AY Honors/Birds - Advanced/Answer Key

2004-10-26T07:52:59Z

160.45.10.9: Add de:Vogelberingung

'''Bird ringing''' (also known as '''bird banding''') is an aid to studying wild [[bird]]s, by attaching a small individually numbered metal or plastic ring to their legs or wings, so that various aspects of the bird's life can be studied by the ability to re-find the same individual later. This can include [[bird migration|migration]], longevity, mortality, population studies, feeding behaviour, and many other aspects.

==Introduction==

Birds are either ringed at the [[nest]], or after being trapped in fine
[[mist net]]s, [[Heligoland trap]]s, [[duck decoy]]s or similar.

A ring of suitable size is attached, and has on it a unique number, plus
a contact address. The bird is often weighed and measured, and examined
for parasites (which may then be removed) before release. The rings are very light-weight, and have no adverse affect on the birds. The individual birds can then be identified when they are re-trapped, or found dead.

The finder can contact the address on the ring, give the unique number,
and be told the known history of the bird's movements.

The organising body, by collating many such reports, can then determine
patterns of bird movements for large populations.

The first organised schemes for bird ringing were started (in [[1909]]) by [[Arthur Landsborough Thomson]] in Aberdeen and [[Harry Witherby]] in England, though smaller individual marking tests had began some years earlier in Denmark and Germany.

==Similar schemes==

===Wing tags===
In some surveys, involving larger birds such as eagles, brightly-
coloured plastic tags are attached to birds' wing feathers. Each has a
letter or letters, and the combination of colour and letters uniquely
identifies the bird. These can then be read in the field, through
binoculars, meaning that there is no need to re-trap the birds. Because
the tags are attached to feathers, they drop off when the bird
[[moult]]s.

===Radio transmitters and satellite-tracking===
Scientists are now running schemes where minute radio transmitters are
attached to the feathers of large [[bird migration|migratory]] birds (geese
and swans are popular subjects). These are then tracked by satellites.
As with wing tags, the transmitters are designed to drop off when the
bird moults.

==Some results==
An [[Arctic Tern]] ringed as a chick not yet able to fly, on the [[Farne Islands]] off the [[Northumberland]] coast in eastern [[Britain]] in summer 1982, reached [[Melbourne]], [[Australia]] in October 1982, a sea journey of '''over 22,000 km''' (14,000 miles) in just three months from fledging.

A [[Manx Shearwater]] ringed as an adult (at least 5 years old), breeding on Copeland Island, [[Northern Ireland]], is currently (2003/2004) the oldest known wild bird in the world: ringed in July 1953, it was retrapped in July 2003, at least '''55 years''' old. Other ringing recoveries have shown that Manx Shearwaters migrate over 10,000 km to waters off southern [[Brazil]] and [[Argentina]] in winter, so this bird has covered a ''minimum'' of 1,000,000 km on migration alone (not counting day-to-day fishing trips). Another bird nearly as old, breeding on [[Bardsey Island]] off [[Wales]] was calculated by ornithologist [[Chris Mead]] to have flown over 8 million km (5 million miles) during its life (and this bird is still alive in 2003, having outlived Chris Mead). 
''Copeland, ringed 1953'' 
[http://website.lineone.net/~kmandjs/recent.htm Copeland Bird Observatory] 
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3032326.stm BBC News] 
''Bardsey Island, ringed 1957'' 
[http://www.bbfo.org.uk/who.htm Bardsey Island Bird Observatory] 
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/2976141.stm BBC News] 
[http://www.wildlifebritain.com/news.cfm/id/36 Wildlife Britain news]

==See also==
*[[Ornithology]]
*[[British Trust for Ornithology]]

==References==
*Knox, A.G. 1982. Ringing pioneer. [[British Trust for Ornithology|BTO]] News No. 122, p.8.
*Knox, A.G. 1983. The location of the Ringing Registers of the Aberdeen University Bird-Migration Inquiry. Ringing and Migration 4: 148. (This has a number of additional references.)

[[de:Vogelberingung]]
[[nl:Ringen]]

Pathfinder Wiki - User contributions [en]

AY Honors/Birds - Advanced/Answer Key