About the project

We have consulted with the British Trust for Ornithology, who actively encourage the monitoring of Red List species such as the House Sparrow, and this project had been registered with them as a Retrapping Adults for Survival (RAS) scheme, using ringing and colour-ringing birds to enable them to be individually identified by bird ringers, birdwatchers, or members of the public.The birds are captured (under licence) and are fitted with a BTO metal ring on their right leg, and with a colour ring on the left leg. The colour ring has a code (the rings are Black, with White lettering, and the code is 2 digits either numbers or letters) that can be easily read using binoculars. Anybody seeing a House Sparrow with a colour ring can contact us at shetlandsparrows@gmail.com. We need to know the code on the ring, and the date and place you saw it. Many thanks for your help!

Thanks to the support of the following:

Shetland Ringing Group for supplying the metal rings for this project

The Shetland Wildlife Fund for covering the cost of buying the colour rings

Plantiecrub Garden Centre and Shop (www.plantiecrub.co.uk) for supplying bird feeders and wild bird seed

Shetland Walking and Wildlife (www.shetlandwalkingandwildlife.co.uk) for allowing Graham time to put his surveying and bird ringing skills to good use

Tuesday 7 May 2013

Publicity

It's great to get people involved in a project such as this, and thanks to the Shetland Times and BBC Radio Shetland local people are now showing an interest. I've been asked by the primary school in Skeld if I'll give a talk to their pupils as they want to have a go at resighting birds. All this is amazing news!

Today I opened the nets for a short period and in popped three more House Sparrows, two females and one male. Interestingly, both females have brood patches (as they should by now), so they are definitely nesting somewhere nearby.

Also, I'm getting more resightings of colour-ringed birds in my own garden now, which is promising, with the earliest ringed bird that's revisted (while I've been watching!) being AC. No sign yet of AA or AB!