Organised as part of the PHENO (for ‘phenology’) programme run by the Museum of Natural History, the ringing campaign for passerines at the Tour du Valat is coming to an end for the 2024 season.
Since the beginning of September, almost 1,300 passerines have been ringed. This ringing programme aims to study the post-nuptial migration of passerines on a national scale. It enables us to train volunteers at the Tour du Valat in ringing and monitoring passerines, while informing us about the species present in the reserve. The trainees are supervised by the Tour du Valat ringers: Antoine Arnaud, Yves Kayser, Julien Birard and Thomas Blanchon. The banding permit is issued by the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle.
When ringing passerines, the birds are captured, banded with very light metal rings adapted to their size and weight (less than 0.2% of the bird’s weight), measured and released. The ring is engraved with the code of the ringing centre that supervised the operation and a unique number: the bird’s identifier. This year’s campaign enabled us to check 5 birds ringed outside France: a Black-capped Warbler from Holland, a Swift Warbler from Norway, a Swiss White-throated Robin, a Swiss Blackbird and a Moustached Warbler from Hungary.
Ringing is one of the main methods of monitoring birds in their natural environment. It is used to study population movements, demographic trends, migration routes, nesting and wintering areas and longevity. To do this, when ringed birds are recaptured or found dead, the information (species, sex, age, measurements, place of capture, etc.) is sent to the Museum of Natural History, which then passes it on to the scientists studying the species.