Sanderling Project ~ Colour-marking
We want to stimulate bird ringers to focus more on sanderlings and can provide anyone seriously interested with colour-rings and colour combinations. Such a collaboration will avoid too many different schemes and consequent confusion by observers. We are especially keen on sanderling catches in West Asia and in Africa.
If you are interested in colour-ringing sanderlings, we will ask you to give us an indication of how many sanderlings you are likely to catch and colour-ring. After all, each combination that is given to you can (and should) not be used by someone else.
Also if you do not want to colour-ring sanderlings, but regularly catch sanderlings (as a "by-catch" for example), we can collaborate. We will ask you to collect data of biometry in a standardized way and to collect a DNA sample (blood or a tail feather) to be able to sex the sanderlings. Molecular sexing will be done for free by us too. Furthermore, the collection of a small wing covert will be useful for stable isotope analysis of migratory connectivity.
Are you a bird ringer and interested in paying special attention to sanderlings? Please contact the project leader:
Jeroen Reneerkens
Animal Ecology Group
Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies
University of Groningen
P.O.Box 14, 9750 AA Haren
The Netherlands
Telephone: +31 50 3632028
E-mail: J.W.H.Reneerkens@rug.nl
More general, information about the value of marking, report and coordinate colour-rings of waders can be found here
