for birds, that is.
On his constitutional one afternoon, Mike picked up a bird’s leg-ring on the beach at the Bay of Hinderayre
We were wondering – what kind of bird was it from? Should we let someone know about it as presumably the bird is dead and they might want that info. for their records?
There are various groups which ring birds, so it’s quite difficult to know who to report it to.
Mike knows more about that sorta thing than I do, so I asked him to elaborate about bird rings and ringing….
“On the beach at Hinderayre this afternoon I found a plastic bird ring, marked with three characters, FZT, black on white. Slight encrustations of marine tube worms show that it had been at sea for some time – at least some months, possibly longer. The ring is probably made from Darvic, a layered plastic material that can be engraved to show the colour of the lower layer (black, in this case) contrasting with a different colour of the top layer (white, in this case). The colour of the ring, the combination of engraved letters or digits and the leg to which the ring has been fitted all combine to provide a unique identifier – unique, that is, to a particular ringing scheme or research project and to the species.
Unlike with the traditional metal rings, these identifiers can easily be read by sight using a telescope or binoculars, providing a record of presence at a particular time and place during the lifetime of the bird – hugely valuable information for determining movement patterns and survival rates, and also informative about breeding success and interactions with other marked individuals.
In the absence of the bird itself, however, metal rings from national ringing schemes do have one big advantage in that their codes are completely unique. This means that the exact identity of the bird can be determined, including both species and the time and place of ringing. We will probably never know these things about FZT. Could it have been a goose? The diameter of the ring looks a bit slender for this. Maybe a large seabird such as a cormorant or one of the bigger species of gulls? Possibly, but we’ll never know.
All we can know is that FZT was dead some time before I picked up the ring.”
We contacted the Orkney Bird Recorder, Steve Dudley, who sent a very helpful response suggesting that, depending on the internal diameter of the ring, it could be from a shag – it looked a bit small for a goose….
“Measure the ring and send all details to these people
https://www.ceh.ac.uk/our-science/projects/mapping-winter-distribution-seabirds
The current project is looking to map the wintering distribution of European shags that breed on the east coast of Scotland and England by collating reports of colour-ringed birds over the winter months. The aim is to be able to answer a range of questions including whether mates and offspring winter together, whether the birds return to the same wintering location year after year, and what effect the choice of location has on their subsequent survival and breeding success.
Steve”
And that’s what we did!
We then received the following email
“From: shags <shags@ceh.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 9:41 AM
Subject: RE: Possible shag ring recovery?
To: Michael Bell
Hi Mike,
Many thanks for getting in touch and reporting this colour ring. I agree with Steve that this is from a Shag, in which case it is from a bird last seen alive in October 2012 – so it’s possible the ring has been floating around for over a decade!
I have attached a file containing the ringing information of White FZT as well as all subsequent sightings.
Thanks again and best wishes,
Josie
Josie Hewitt (she/her)
Avian Ecologist
Biodiversity & Land Use”
Just goes to show….it’s always worth contacting them as knows!
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