Bird-ringing in Great Britain

Abstract

THE banding or ringing of birds is now accepted as the established technique for elucidating migratory and other movements, and Mr. H. F. Witherby and the British Birds scheme are to be congratulated upon the success with which they have kept the system alive and increasingly flourishing in the British Isles. During 1931, more British birds than ever were marked with identification rings, 29,554, and this brings the grand total since the beginning of the scheme in 1909 to 316,955 (British Birds, March 1932, p. 286). Recoveries vary greatly amongst the different species: the highest percentages are shared by two birds of prey, the peregrine falcon (23.3 per cent) and the merlin (21.8 per cent), and these figures suggest the intensity of destruction which overtakes such birds at the hands of game-preservers, for even the innocent kestrel is represented by 49 returns out of 494 ringed. At the other end of the scale stands the blackcap, the 517 ringed individuals of which gave not a single return, and for all the warblers and even many of the finches the recoveries are very meagre. Of 496 nightingales only 2 have been handled again, and of 507 arctic terns only one. It is obvious that a great deal of labour goes unrewarded in ringing birds; 22,943 swallows have yielded only 163 (0.7 per cent) returns, but the returns have brought out new facts regarding the range of the southward migration and the return of the birds to the locality of their birth. More curious still, of 37,225 song-thrushes, only 481 or 1.4 per cent have been found again.