How to read bird bands
Look closely and you will notice that some of our birds have coloured rings or bands on their legs. These help us identify individual animals and are an important part of our research.
Each set of bands provides a unique combination, enabling us to easily identify individual animals. That way we can find out information such as:
- Where they live
- Who they mate with
- How many offspring they rear
- How long they live
- How far they move
- And how successful our transfers have been.
Robins, tomtits, whiteheads, saddleback, bellbirds, hihi, kaka, pateke and weka have been banded with coloured bands as part of our monitoring programme following their transfer to the valley. We have usually distinguished offspring from different breeding seasons by using a single “cohort” colour for all those birds of the same age, but cohort colours used each year will vary between species.
Basic information for reading bird bands:
- To identify individuals it is important to be able to accurately read and record what bands are seen on a bird.
- In all species except kaka, each banded bird will have an uncoloured metal band (M) on one leg and coloured plastic bands on both legs.
- Bird bands are read top to bottom on each leg
- Band combinations are written down: left leg (top/bottom) - right leg (top/bottom) eg red/green left-white/metal right is written R/G-W/M.
The colours used on birds vary from species to species:
Click here for more information about kaka bands
Click here for more information about bellbird and hihi bands