Abstract
THE 1936 report on bird ringing in the British Isles {British Birds, April 1937) supports what the 1935 report indicated, namely, that future progress lies not in increasing the sum total, but rather in increasing the proportion of adult birds over nestlings, and scarcer species, marked. Although the total of 48,663 birds ringed is below the number for previous years, the total of trapped adult birds, 19,235, is a record, while that for nestlings (where mortality is naturally high) of 29,428 is a decline on the previous years. Dr. H. J. Moon again heads the list of ringers with 5,280 birds ringed, including 1,332 lapwings, 975 song thrushes, 849 blackbirds and 587 starlings; Mr. G. Charteris marked 3,524 birds, 1,166 of which were chaffinches, and Mr. E. Cohen marked 3,024 birds, including 865 shearwaters. There is an increasing number of birds ringed by schools and societies, and the two bird observatories. The Oxford Ornithological Society marked 2,639 birds, Bootham School 1,656, Rugby School 1,050, the Midlothian Ornithological Club 813, the British Empire Naturalists' Association 158, the Zoological Society 511 and Leighton Park School 403. Totals of ringed birds are not quite so significant as the numbers of birds of rarer species marked. Among the ringings of the Oxford Ornithological Society, for example, were 67 kingfishers, Skokholm Bird Observatory marked 27 white wagtails and 20 Greenland wheat ears, Mr. A. Maynall marked 409 nightingales, Mr. C. Wontner Smith marked 201 rooks, Rugby School marked 169 rooks and 62 carrion-crows, Leighton Park School marked 21 fork-tailed petrels, Dartington Hall School 12 cirl buntings, the Isle of May Bird Observatory a barred warbler, two bluethroats and a Continental coal tit. Of the national total, the most numerous species ringed were: 3,191 lapwings, 2,155 Manx shearwaters, 1,530 Sandwich terns, 1,271 common terns and 1,131 herring-gulls.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Present State of British Bird Ringing. Nature 139, 833 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/139833a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/139833a0