Abstract
THE first ringing of South African migratory birds was made early in December 1948 when the Cape Bird Club, under the direction of Dr. G. J. Broekhuysen of the University of Cape Town, used specially designed nets to catch European waders on the mud flats as Muizenberg, and marked them with leg bands inscribed "Zoo-Pretoria". The ringing scheme is sponsored by the South African Ornithological Society and is being extended over the Western Province. The birds caught were weighed before marking and release. Little stints, avocets, Sandwich terns, curlew-sandpipers, stilts and other familiar British birds-of-passage and nesting birds are expected to figure prominently in the South African experiment, which will not only elucidate further details about the winter quarters of European waders, and shore birds, but also determine whether many of the birds found at the Cape remain in the Union throughout the year, or nest elsewhere in Africa. Certain species like the black-winged stilt not only migrate from European nesting haunts but also breed in parts of Africa.
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Bird-Ringing in South Africa. Nature 163, 317 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163317a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163317a0