Weedon’s World
In November, Mike found a colour-ringed Mediterranean Gull in Peterborough, and questions whether metal rings could be easier to read
Mike questions whether metal bird rings could be easier to read
Every day, as I am sure I have mentioned before, I cycle to work through Ferry Meadows CP, which is only a mile away from the BW office in Peterborough. And, of course, every day I do a bit of birding along the way, particularly scanning the three lakes which sit in a meander of the River Nene, and have a habit of drawing down birds which use the river as a migration route and want to ‘cut the corner’. One place I always check is the little T-shaped pontoon bridge outside the watersports centre on the largest lake, Gunwade. Gulls (and the odd tern) use it for a rest and a preen, and I always hope something good will appear among them. In mid-november, something good was there, a second-winter Mediterranean Gull. And, to add further interest, it had a green ‘colour ring’ on its right leg (metal on the left). But I had no camera, and couldn’t quite read the lettering. Luckily, five days later, the gull was back in the exact same spot and I was fully armed with what my kids call my ‘big boy’s camera’. The photos clearly showed white lettering ASSH and within a day, thanks to the combined powers of modern digital photography, the internet and email, I knew that the gull had been ringed in southern Sweden, on the Baltic side, as a pullus, in June 2016. Med Gulls are quite rare breeders in Sweden and it was thrilling to know I had found one of ‘their’ birds and made a minor contribution to knowledge about movements of Baltic bred Mediterranean Gulls. Earlier in the year, I had recorded one or two other colour-marked birds. These included a Pochard with one of those hideous nasal saddles, in south Lincolnshire, which came from the Czech Republic; and also from south Lincs, a juvenile Peregrine (1.H) which came from Staffordshire. These colour-ringed birds provide fascinating information and feedback about the movement and survival of individuals. But they represent only a tiny fraction of all birds which are ringed with metal rings by ‘standard’ ringers. There is a wealth of potential information and science to be gleaned from every one of those ringed birds. However, hardly any of these ringed individuals will provide any further information, post-ringing. It generally requires a bird to be trapped again, or for it to be found dead, for one of these metal rings to provide any further feedback. Amazing discoveries are being made, thanks to revolutionary modern tracking devices installed on birds such as Cuckoos. Technology is dragging the world of bird movements into the future. But, still the core of ringing is about putting little metal bands on birds which will never be seen again. When I say “never be seen again”, though, this is not strictly true. How often do you see birds in the field, bearing metal rings? And how often do you photograph birds with rings which are unreadable, even for modern cameras? It seems a case of bird ringing lagging far behind modern technology, particularly digital photography. Take that Swedish Med Gull, ASSH, for example. It was pretty close, so my photographs picked up the white lettering on green without a problem. But it also (like so many other non-colour-ringed gulls) had a metal ring on its other leg. According to the feedback I got from the Swedish/german ringing group, the gull’s metal ring had the number 6171554. But there is no way you could read this from my photos. The number is unclear and is wrapped round the leg, so you can only see a couple of blurry digits at a time. It would take lots of photographs from lots of angles to piece this together, making it almost always impractical. Surely, it is not beyond the brains of the BTO etc to produce a redesigned, high contrast ring (at least for mid-sized and larger birds) with the number readable (by cameras) from different angles, without the need for masses of photographs. Even dropping the largely irrelevant (in the age of the internet) postal address information would free up some space on the ring for bigger, clearer numbers/letters. With redesigned metal rings combined with the power of modern photography, the usefulness of bird ringing could be hugely increased. Every birder armed with a digital camera could be part of a major advance in a new citizen science of bird ringing. It’s got to be cheaper than teeny electronic transmitters. And potentially, it could increase exponentially the utility of bird ringing, and get all of us members of the vast camera-wielding birding public involved.
Surely, it is not beyond the brains of the BTO to produce a redesigned, high contrast, readable ring
Mike is an obsessive patch lister and keen wildlife photographer in his home city of Peterborough, where he lives with his wife, Jo, and children, Jasmine and Eddie. You can see his photos at weedworld.blogspot.com