| The Dungeness Bird Observatory was formed in 1952 and bird ringing has been taking place on a more or less daily basis since that time. There is an obvious bias towards migrating birds so that the peak activity occurs in spring between March and May and again in autumn between the end of July and early November. |
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In those early days much of the trapping of birds was in Heligoland Traps with up to nine of these large structures in use. Nowadays the majority of birds are caught in fine nets suspended between poles and are designed to catch birds in flight. |
Named after the island on which these traps were first designed and used, the Heligoland Trap is basically a large funnel made of netting and ending with a collecting box where birds are finally caught and removed. In order to catch the birds it is necessary to actively move the birds into the catching end of the trap but for the rest of the time birds are free to come and go at will. The major advantage of this type of trap is that they can be used in any weather conditions.
In the 1950's the first mist nets were used in Britain to catch birds and these now provide the main means of catching birds for ringing. This can be a very effective method of trapping mainly small birds but birds can only be removed safely by experienced ringers who have received special training. They do have serious disadvantages however, the main one being that they cannot be used if it is wet or windy - an all too common scenario at Dungeness.
The skills necessary to become a ringer can only be learnt by practice under the close supervision of experienced ringers. Ringers have to undertake a period of several years of training before being able to qualify as an 'A' permit holder. A British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) ringing permit is a legal requirement in order to ring in this country and must be renewed annually.
The ring also bears an address (below, ii) so that anyone finding a ringed bird can help by reporting its whereabouts and fate. Many ringed birds are also caught by other ringers at a later date and are also reported in the same way to the BTO.
In addition to the simple ringing of the bird a number of other parameters are also recorded. This will include the age and sex of the bird and usually the wing length, weight (below, iii), fat score, muscle condition and extent of moult. A variety of other characteristics may also be noted.
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Over 90 years of bird ringing in Britain and Ireland (and also from the continent) has resulted in a huge amount of data being collected. Up to the end of 1998 a total of 28,211,610 birds had been ringed in Britain and Ireland. The main thrust of earlier ringing work was in migration studies - discovering where and when birds migrated to and from, the routes taken and how long the journeys took. Whilst there is still much to learn in these fields the emphasis has now broadened and large amounts of data are provided for the monitoring of bird populations.
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For instance a simple analysis of annual totals gives a very disturbing picture for many species. For many species, including apparently "common" birds the number of birds ringed annually has declined drastically over recent years.
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For ringing totals of selected species from 1954 to 2005, please download the Microsoft Excel file here, and for a record of birds ringed at Dungeness and subsequently found again during 2000, please download the Microsoft Word file here, or contact the Dungeness Bird Observatory to request a copy of the report.