A Bird in the Hand

We were disappointed that we were going to miss a bird ringing demo at Longshaw last week because we were away, but fate (or rather, snow) intervened in our favour, and the event was re-scheduled for today. We were hoping that we might get a close-up sighting of a Brambling before they fly back to their Summer breeding grounds.We were not disappointed. There have been quite a lot around this winter, but they have often been in mobile flocks rather than ones and twos, so not always easy to see.
The young woman holding this bird is a trainee ringer. It is an incredibly long training programme and the trainees are closely supervised by very experienced ringers before they are allowed to "fly solo". The birds are caught usually in fine mist nets, then quickly retrieved. They are then weighed, measured and information noted about age and gender before being ringed then released. On demos like this one, observers are usually shown how to safely hold the bird and then release it. I got to release a dunnock today. The most surprising thing about the captured birds is how calm most of them are. There were a number of small children present today, and the look of delight on their faces to see these small birds so close up was a joy. Along with citizen science - surveys and such - ringing provides the BTO in particular with invaluable information about movements, lifespans and general trends of different species of birds, which in turn informs conservation strategy for other organisations.