Projects of the Avian Demography Unit

SAFRING
South African Bird Ringing Unit

Reporting recoveries of dead birds to SAFRING If you find a dead wild bird with a ring on it, please report this to SAFRING, the South African Bird Ringing Unit. SAFRING will trace the details of where and when the bird was ringed, and send you a report. For resightings of colour ringed birds, click here. The following information is required: Ring number Date found Locality found Cause of death Your contact details Details on the information that is required: Ring number If the ring number has a Pretoria Zoo address or a SAFRING address, then only the ring number is needed. Note with penguin rings, that there is a letter on the other side of the gap in the ring, which also needs to be reported. If there is a foreign address, e.g. Inform British Museum, this must be reported to SAFRING. Note that foreign rings should be flattened and posted to SAFRING. If the ring does not have an address, the bird is probably an escaped aviary bird or a racing pigeon. For example, WKDU 2000 = Wes Kaap Duiwe Unie, bird ringed in 2000. These rings are usually closed rings. SAFRING does not keep a register of aviary birds and racing pigeons, so there is no need to report it. If you're not sure, then rather report it, however. Date found Record the date on which you found the ring. If you found the ring some time ago, and cannot remember the exact date, give an estimate with an accuracy, e.g. about 7 March 2000, +- one week. Locality found Record the exact locality since SAFRING needs to find the locality on a map and determine the coordinates. Also record the province (or country, if outside of South Africa). If the ring was found on a farm, give the farm name, and the approximate distance and direction from the nearest town. If the ring was found along a road, give the approximate distance from the next town, and list the road and two towns you were travelling between. If you have a GPS then carefully record the coordinates and send with a locality name. Cause of death Record the cause of death, if known. Record how long the bird has been dead, e.g. freshly dead, decaying, skeleton only Your contact details Record your name and telephone number (in case SAFRING needs more details) Record an address to which the report about the ringed bird can be sent, preferably an email address (then the report will be sent as a virus-free text attachment), otherwise a fax number or postal address. Sending recovery reports Send the recovery details in one of the following ways: email: safring@maths.uct.ac.za fax: 021-650-3434; international: +27-21-650-3434 post: SAFRING, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7701 Note on the ring: You should either post the ring to SAFRING (especially foreign rings and very small rings which are difficult to read), or keep it until you have received a report from SAFRING to check that the ring number was recorded correctly. Receiving recovery reports Reports are processed as quickly as possible. If recovery details are incomplete, inaccurate or unclear, there will be a delay. Sometimes the ringing details are not available when the ring is reported. In such cases the ringer is requested for the details, but again there may be a delay. If you have not received a report within a month of sending it, feel free to contact SAFRING to make sure that the recovery report was received.

Resightings of colour ringed birds

The same details are required as in the case of reporting recoveries of ringed birds (see above), in addition to reporting the bird species and colours of the rings. Note that extreme care needs to be taken to record the colours very accurately, as well as which legs they are on. For example, for this Cape Weaver you would report yellow over red on the left leg, and red over metal on the right leg (imagine the bird standing in front of you and facing away from you).

For engraved rings you need to record the bird species, the letters on the ring and the colours of the ring and the letters. There are usually two letters on engraved rings being used currently. Some of the species that are being ringed with engraved rings are listed at: Projects