Two of Turkey’s three bird-ringing stations, namely Kuyucuk and Aras Bird-Ringing Stations, have just ended their fall 2009 studies. Total number of the birds ringed in both stations through the fieldworks conducted by KuzeyDoğa Society, Kars Directorate of Environment and Forestry, Iğdır Directorate Environment and Forestry  and Kafkas University, reached collectively to 5439.

Aras Bird Research and Education Center is located by the Lake of Aras in the village of Yukarı Çıyrıklı, district of Tuzluca, province of Iğdır. The bird-ringing activities at Aras Bird Research and Education Center were initiated in fall 2006, which were organized this year starting on 10 August 2009 and ending on 31 October 2009.  On 83 days of bird-ringing studies, 2868 individuals from 74 different species of birds were ringed. Throughout the ringing period, 14 students from Hacettepe, METU, Bosporus, Istanbul, Gazi, Yüzüncü Yıl, Ankara and Kafkas Universities volunteered and 9 expert ringers from Czech Republic, England, the Netherlands, Belgium and Scotland boosted the studies. This year, for the first time a turtle dove (Streptopalia turtur) was ringed contrary to the previous years.
 

Kuyucuk Bird Research and Education Center is situated by the Lake of Kuyucuk, in the district of Arpaçay, province of Kars. In fall 2007, the bird-ringing studies were initiated at Kuyucuk Bird Research and Education Center, and this year’s works started on 21 August 2009 and ended on 26 October 2009. For the period of the aggregate 66 days of ringing, 2571 birds from 67 species were ringed. 17 persons from Hacettepe, Gazi, Anadolu, Yüzüncü Yıl, Uludağ and Kafkas Universities worked voluntarily, and 5 expert ringers provided us with support during the activities.  And also, during the observations by Kirsty Jane Lees, a Scottish volunteer of us, a goldeneye was classified to be a member in the fauna of Kuyucuk whose number of the species then became 212.

Thus, the number of the international and domestic volunteers that took part in the ringing activities performed in the provinces of Kars and Iğdır in fall 2009 by KuzeyDoğa Society reached up to 42. Thanks to data collected and the birds ringed, the fact that Kars-Iğdır area is a significant bird migration route was once again made certain, and information of prime importance regarding the Africa-Eurasia migration route, one of the longest routes throughout the entire globe, was compiled. As a result of the works conducted; the birds, heretofore ringed at Aras and Kuyucuk Stations, were determined to have been migrating from Kazakhstan to the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus, and from the Republic of South Africa to Zambia, which eventually demonstrated the importance of such ringing activities carried out in Turkey.

What is Bird-Ringing?

Bird-ringing (also referred to as bird-banding) is the monitoring of bird migrations and of alternations in the number of birds by catching them with very thin mist nets that do no harm to the individual migrant, and by affixing on their tarsi (legs) light, stainless, aluminum rings, each of which has a particular number to constitute an identity card. Millions of birds have been studied via this method in many countries for over 100 years. Bearing the name of the bird-ringing country and the address of the ringing center on their facets, these rings demonstrate where a ringed bird has migrated from in the case that it is re-trapped or its deceased body is found. Identification of species, bird-ringing (identity), identification of sex and age, wingspan and tail measurements, fat and age ratio, state of molting, and direction finding experiments are conducted, and educations to visitors, primarily pupils, are given at the ringing stations.