EURING Newsletter, Volume 3, July 2001

Computers have become increasingly important in the management of ringing activities world-wide. Recent developments in hardware and software technologies have also allowed a direct involvement and contribution of ringers to the computerisation of ringing data. Several schemes are updating their systems, and an interesting case is offered here by the Radolfzell and Helgoland joint new systems, as described by Wolfgang Fiedler and Walter Foken.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW DATABASE RINGZENT
IN THE BIRD RINGING CENTRES HELGOLAND AND RADOLFZELL

by Wolfgang Fiedler(1) and Walter Foken(2)

(1) RESEARCH CENTRE FOR ORNITHOLOGY OF THE
MAX PLANCK SOCIETY ANDECHS UND RADOLFZELL
VOGELWARTE RADOLFZELL
BIRD RINGING CENTRE SCHLOSSALLEE 2,
D-78315 RADOLFZELL, GERMANY
E-mail: fiedler@vowa.ornithol.mpg.de

(2) INSTITUT FÜR VOGELFORSCHUNG
"VOGELWARTE HELGOLAND"
BIRD RINGING CENTRE
AN DER VOGELWARTE 21
D-26386 WILHELMSHAVEN, GERMANY
E-mail: walter.foken@ifv.terramare.de

In the years 1999 and 2000 fundamental reorganizations of the ringing databases were undertaken in parallel at the ornithological centres Radolfzell and Helgoland. The revision was necessary because the old system was able to accept in electronic form only a small proportion of the incoming recovery data, and in many respects no longer satisfied the modern criteria for a large, rapidly accessible data bank. Now, with the introduction of the new system, the ringers have finally been given an opportunity to exchange their data with the ornithological centre quickly and less laboriously.

The ringing database RINGZENT

The Research Centre for Ornithology of the Max Planck Society, Vogelwarte Radolfzell, and the Institut für Vogelforschung, Vogelwarte Helgoland, joined forces with the firm SOFT Solution (Karlsruhe) in order to develop the new database for their ringing centres. This collaboration not only halved the development costs for the two centres but also provided a number of other advantages: while each of the centres can continue to operate entirely independently of the other, the system makes it possible for them to easily exchange data, useful program tools and of course practical experiences with one another. In the planning stages, the designers of the database drew upon the extensive experience the Dutch ringing centre in Arnheim had accumulated during years of developing and working with a similar system. However, because in Holland some components were no longer state-of-the-art, and several things could not be applied without modification to the situation in Germany, a specially designed system was developed on the basis of the background and advice kindly provided by our Dutch colleagues (in which regard, heartfelt thanks are due here to Gerrit Speek, Arje van Noordwijk and Rinse Wassenaar!).

Figure 1 shows how the database is constructed. At its foundation is the database system ORACLE, which the Max Planck Society urgently recommended to us as an international standard. RINGZENT is thus a program that operates under ORACLE within the ringing centre. Its most important functions are:

• to receive the ringing data provided by field workers, check these data and transfer them into the database; if the data contain any errors, an error protocol is transmitted to the originator;
• to receive all recovery data (from ringers, other people who report recoveries, those who find ringed birds by chance and so on, as a file or by direct input), check these data and where necessary request the associated ringing data if this is not directly available;
• to compile ringing and recovery data, and to inform finders, ringers and, where appropriate, the affected ringing centres;
• to receive, check and administer supplementary data such as kinship status, re-ringing and subsequently also nest maps and other special files;
• to keep track of the stocks of rings at the ornithological centre and provide information about the issuing of rings;
• rapid export functions in various formats for data users and export of the data in EURING format for the central database of the European Union for Bird Ringing (EURING);
• monitoring of access to the data, management of data security and continuous monitoring of data quality and consistency;
• accessory procedures for the administration of ringing and recovery data.

RING - the program for the ringers

As can be seen in the diagram, ringers (and of course ring-readers, e.g. in the case of the White Stork) can enter their ringing and recovery data at home on their PCs and then send them on a disk (or via the Internet) to "their" ringing centre. The program RING enables the ringers or readers to enter the data in the form required by RINGZENT. Hence it does not run in the ringing centre but rather on the ringers' own home computers; it can be obtained from the associated ringing centre.

On the basis of questionnaires filled in by the ringers as well as other external considerations including a fixed limit on expenditures, it was decided to design RING as a program that can run under Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT. Therefore ringers who want to use RING must have access to a computer on which one of these operating systems is installed. The other prerequisites are standard for modern PCs: a monitor with a resolution of at least 1024 x 768 pixels, about 15 MB of free hard-disk space (actually less storage space is needed, but the data tables will expand as new ringings and recoveries are added), a 3.5" disk drive and at least 16 MB of RAM.

RING not only enables the ringing and recovery data to be entered for transmission to the ringing centre, but also generates tables containing all the entered data, which remain on the original computer and are thus available to the ringer for further evaluation. By pressing a button the ringer can obtain information at any time about important statistics resulting from his or her ringing and recovery activity. In addition, of course, for any selected ring number all the recoveries known to the ringer are displayed and for every recovery that the ringer has entered, the ringing data are immediately available.

Behind the user interface that appears when RING is started up is a much reduced version of the database program Microsoft Access, which can be passed to other users from the ringing centres without additional licence fees. This means that ultimately all the data that have been entered are available as Access files. Therefore experienced users with a complete version of Access, which is commercially available, can make use of these data directly for their own evaluations. In addition there is a number of other programs that can be used since the ODBC standards are kept. The export function, normally used to send data to the ringing centre, can serve to transfer the user's own data completely into a working file that can then be modified as desired in the course of the user's own evaluations.

High personnel costs, more limited funds and great expectations regarding the efficacy of a ringing centre nowadays make it essential for the time-consuming everyday work of entering, sorting and organizing data in a ringing centre to be automated as much as possible. The staff members employed in a ringing centre are expensive and are needed for other important tasks (receiving recoveries from external sources, monitoring data, data delivery to external users, internal evaluations, analyses and much more), so that in future it will be out of the question for them also to enter lists of ringings or recaptures. Therefore it was a necessary decision that from the year 2000 on, the ringing centres in Wilhelmshaven and Radolfzell will in principle accept only ringing data that have been entered into an electronic database by means of the program RING and that are submitted to the centre in computer-readable form, e.g. on disk.

There are two exceptions to this rule: Ringers who had been working with the centre concerned before the year 2000 and are reluctant to convert to computerized data entry can continue to deliver their data in the customary manner, as lists on paper.

Ringers experienced in the use of computers may use their own programs, which in some cases may be more extensive, for entering data. However, when supplied to the ringing centre the data must be precisely in the form prescribed by the centre. A comprehensive description of the data exchange structure is available.

It can happen, of course, that a person who has just joined the group of ringers has no suitable computer available. RING is so designed that several ringers can enter their data into the same computer. Even if such joint use with a fellow ringer proves not to be feasible, a solution can surely be found in consultation with the ringing centre.

In addition to the ringing data, all recoveries (including "own recoveries", made by the original ringer) should be sent to the centre by means of RING. Ring-readers who, as in the case of the White Stork, perform more than 20 readings per year are also cordially invited to use RING when communicating their data to the centre. However, RING is of no use when only colour-ring readings (where neither ringing centre nor ring number are known) are to be submitted. Recovery data communicated to the centre by means of RING can be processed considerably faster than written communications.

What happens in case of recoveries by people not associated with the centre?

Rings are not uncommonly recovered at random, by people throughout the world who have no connection to the ringing program but nevertheless communicate their findings to the centre. These data will naturally continue to be accepted in any form. They are then entered directly into RINGZENT by coworkers at the centre. Every user of RING can enter any recovery of a bird (whether the bird is included in the program or not, wherever it was found, regardless of the ringing centre, and so on) by means of that user's version of the RING program, provided that he/she knows the ringing centre (which is imprinted on the ring) and the ring number, and that the ring originated from a scientific program. These recoveries are then processed by the ringing centre as soon as the data have been received and all the other required data (e.g. from another ringing centre) have been made available.

Fig. 1: Structure of RINGZENT and RING

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