Bird Ringing

Purpose of Bird Ringing
In order to collect certain types of information about wild birds, they need to be individually marked in some way. This is traditionally done using numbered rings (sometimes coloured rings) that are placed on their legs or by the use of neck bands or wing tags. Birds that are marked and later recaptured or re-sighted,  help researchers understand their movement patterns, map their breeding, migratory, and wintering habitats, or track yearly changes in population sizes.

The Ring
The most common way of marking birds is using a metal ring placed on the leg. Different types of rings are used depending on the size or special shape of the bird’s leg. The important thing is that the ring is as comfortable as possible. The ringing center’s code (in Hungary, the inscription „BUDAPEST”) and the ring’s unique number are inscripted on the ring. Colourful plastic rings are also increasingly used for marking, and in some species, these may be placed on the neck or wing as well. A huge advantage of these is that they can be identified without capturing the bird (with a high-powered telescope, they can be identified from several hundred meters away), which greatly increases the chances of reading the IDs.

Radio and Satellite Tracking
The latest tools for individual identification and tracking are satellite and GPS transmitters, which provide the precise location of the marked bird. While their use is costly, they provide finely detailed information (sometimes for several years) and often reveal completely new, previously unknown phenomena to researchers. Although transmitters have become smaller over the years, they cannot yet be fitted to birds smaller than the size of a dove. For tiny birds (such as swallows), geolocators can be attached. The downside is that although the collected data is stored, the bird must be recaptured to access the data. Satellite tracking results for birds equipped with transmitters can be viewed on the website www.satellitetracking.eu.

Recapture of Ringed Birds
When a previously ringed bird is recaptured, the ring number is read, and the bird’s data is recorded before it is released again. With coloured rings or larger metal rings, the bird can be identified without being captured, using a strong magnification telescope (observation). In many cases, only the carcass of the ringed bird is found (discovery), and in this case, it is crucial to record the circumstances.

Catching Birds
Bird catching and ringing should be carried out with great care. There are many different methods for catching birds depending on the species’ behaviour. The most common method is mist netting, which is primarily used for catching songbirds. In many bird species, chicks are marked in the nest before they fledge. For the largest bird species—storks, herons, eagles—this is almost the only way to ring them. In Europe, about 4 million birds are ringed annually. In Hungary, nearly 6 million birds have been marked since 1908, the majority of which occurred in the past two decades. The number of recaptures is close to one million.

Bird Ringing Specialists
To ring birds, bird ringers must pass a special exam organized by the Ministry of Agriculture. About 450 bird ringers in Hungary participate in this work, most of them volunteering their free time and other resources.

EURING
Birds are not restricted by national borders, and therefore, bird ringing can only be successful in an international cooperation. Such a framework is provided by EURING (The European Union for Bird Ringing), founded in Paris in 1963. In Hungary, the Bird Ringing Center operates within BirdLife Hungary, a member of EURING.

I Found a Ring! What Should I Do?
If you find a ringed bird, a ring or observed a bird with a coloured ring, please inform the Bird Ringing Centre! The most important information includes the exact inscription and number on the ring, the species name, the location and date of the discovery, and your name and contact information. The data can also be uploaded online to the Hungarian page of www.ring.ac. If possible, send a photo of the bird or the ring as well. The information will be added to the bird ringing database, and the centre will send you the ringing data in a reply letter.

Visit Our Bird Ringing Camps!
You can learn more about bird ringing camps across the country on the website of BirdLife Hungary. In Komárom-Esztergom County, bird ringing takes place in Naszály, at the Ferencmajor Bird Observatory during both the spring (from mid-April for one month) and autumn (from late July to November) seasons. Every August, the Ferenc Hopp Bird Camp welcomes visitors. We warmly welcome school classes and groups at the bird ringing station and camp site with prior registration.

At the Old Lake, we often observe gulls, herons, egrets, and geese with colour rings in their flocks. Initially, light metal rings with unique combinations of letters and numbers were commonly used, but as technology progressed, new ring types were developed: colour rings that can be read from a distance using telescopes. These are used on larger birds, such as wild geese, and allow us to obtain much more information from observations than with metal rings. A bird marked with a colour ring only needs to be captured once in its lifetime. In geese, the colour ring is often placed on the neck.

The readings allow us to know exactly where the geese come from, where they stopped to rest, and how much time they spent in different places. Thanks to individual identification, we regularly see old friends among the geese at the Old Lake. Geese form lifelong pairs, so sometimes we observe previously marked birds together years later. Today, satellite transmitters are also placed on geese, providing very accurate data about migration routes—even from places where no one can read their colour rings.