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

Wednesday 2 January 2013

Our survey area

Just a short note to let you all know that we've now settled on the area of Westside that we're focusing our efforts on for the initial stages of this project.

There's a map to the left of the page showing our survey area, but basically this is from the Bridge of Walls westwards to Mid Walls and south to the coast at Vaila Sound. All initial ringing of House Sparrows will be within this area, but once the summer arrives we may look at the rest of the peninsula northwards to the coast at Sandness, including the known populations as Dale of Walls, and Sandness itself. What would be really great would be to also include the islands of Vaila to the south, and Papa Stour to the north, but that would take a lot more time, not to mention a regular ferry to Papa, and our own boat to get to Vaila, so it's not likely to happen soon.

Another bit of good news is that the rings I currently hold have been transferred to the Shetland Ringing Group so that they can be used for this project. Thanks to Anne Trewhitt at the BTO for sorting this out as speedily as usual!
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