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Describing combinations

You will rarely see a bird bearing just a single colour rings or flag. More often you’ll see combinations of rings and flags that, tells us something about the bird; either its individual identify, or for example, the location it breeds or the year it hatched. You will need to note the colour of each mark, whether they bear any inscriptions, and the positions of each mark.

Different colours of ring or flag to look for

A range of colours are used for colour-marking, the commonest being: white, black, yellow, orange, red, light green, dark green, pale blue and dark blue. Other colours used include: light pink, dark pink, pink, purple, brown and grey. Each colour has a single code letter to facilitate short-hand notation of sightings. Most are simply the first letter of the colour. An exception is Black, which is coded ‘N‘ for Noir to avoid confusion with ‘B‘ for Blue. In addition, the metal ring is usually coded as ‘m‘.

Common colours and their codes:

Colur name
Black
White
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Lime
Blue
Pale Blue
Code
N
W
R
O
Y
G
L
B
P
Colour

 

Additional colours and their codes:

Colur name
Light pink
Dark pink
Purple
Brown
Grey
Code
K
C
V
U
S
Colour

 

Positions on the leg

What many people call the birds ‘knee’ (actually its ankle) divides a bird’s leg into two sections. The upper (‘tibia’) and lower (‘tarsus’). Each part may have a different set of marks, so you will need to note whether rings/flags are on the ‘upper left’, ‘lower left’, ‘upper right’ or ‘lower right’, and of course the ordering of any marks within each. See these examples for more information.

 

A few simple rules will help to ensure the combination is reported accurately:

  1. Know your left and right – it may sound daft, but this is the commonest error. Report the rings on the bird’s left leg, followed by those on its right leg.
  2. Waders wade – sooner or later you’ll see a colour-marked wader standing in water. If you can’t see the lower half of the legs, tell us so we don’t assume no rings were present.