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EURING Newsletter - Volume 3 - July 2001 THE EURING COMMUNITY: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NATIONAL SCHEMES As interesting contributions to this section, Pertti Saurola from Finland and Dare Sere from Slovenia offer an overview of the Helsinki and Ljubliana ringing schemes. Helsinki is an example of the potential ringers can represent in mapping and monitoring breeding bird populations on a national scale, as well as of the historical computerisation of both ringing and recovery data. Ljubliana is a rapidly growing scheme with a fast increase in ringing activities and an active role within co-ordinated EURING projects. 75 YEARS OF THE BIRD RINGING SCHEME LJUBLJANA by Dare Sere BIRD
RINGING CENTRE LJUBLJANA In 1926, an Ornithological Observatory was founded in Ljubljana, it main task being the scientific study of bird migrations across Slovenia on the basis of ringing. Most of the credit for its foundation goes to Dr Stanko Bevk and Dr Janko Ponebsek. Slovenia thus joined the advanced countries, which after 1899 decided to follow Denmark, where ringing of birds, as a new method in ornithology of that time, was initiated by Prof. Mortensen. Even prior to the foundation of the above mentioned Observatory, two White Storks (C. ciconia) had been ringed in mid-September 1909 in Maribor, the rings for them made by Jurij Brandl, maker of church organs. At the end of the same month in 1909, one of the two ringed storks was caught at Roccela Jonica (Reggio di Calabria/Italy), which was actually the first recovery of a bird carrying a Slovene ring abroad. The first success of the Ljubljana Observatory was the recovery of a Barred Warbler (S. nisoria) that had been ringed on July 3rd 1927 and caught again on June 28th 1928 at the very same place at Ljubljansko barje (Ljubljana Marshes). Thus the assertion was confirmed that the majority of migratory birds return to the place where they had been hatched. The first much talked about recovery in Europe of that time was a Red-backed Shrike (L. collurio) ringed in Slovenia and caught, in August 1930, on the Peloponnese in Greece. There followed another recovery of a Slovene Red-backed Shrike, i.e. on one of the islands in the Aegean Sea at the end of September 1933. These two recoveries were very important indeed, for until that time only three recoveries of the Red-backed Shrike had been known in Europe - two in Egypt and one in Sudan. In 1934, the first number of "Izvestje" of the Ornithological Observatory 1926 - 1933 (ORNITHOL. OBSERVATORIUM IN LJUBLJANA. Jahresbericht 1926-1933) was published, with a report on ringed bird species from Slovenia during 1927-1933 as well as on the first Slovene and foreign recoveries of ringed birds. During the Ornithological Observatory's seven years of operation (1927-1933), 2,938 birds were ringed (60 species). In Slovenia, bird ringing continued during World War II, and eventually the Ornithological Observatory was incorporated into the Slovene Museum of Natural History. The first major change took place in 1973, when we began to use genuine nylon nets. During this work we were getting thoroughly acquainted with different bird species, and some of the first biometric data on live birds were also collected at that time. The very first courses for future ringers were then organised, and we began to think about setting up an ornithological trapping sites that would operate during the entire migration period. Eventually some new bird species were established that had not been recorded in Slovenia till then, such as: Cetti's Warbler (C. cetti), Fan-tailed Warbler (C. juncidis), Rustic Bunting (E. rustica), Little Bunting (E. pusilla) and Chestnut Bunting (E. rutila). In 1976, for example, no less than 35,087 birds (127 species) were already ringed by 69 people. In 1987, the Vrhnika trapping grounds were set up, where birds have been ringed every year since then from mid-July till the end of October. For the first time we have joined the international project dealing with the study of migrating warblers, known as Acroproject. At the very start we proved very successful in the ringing of roosting Barn Swallows (H. rustica), and soon the first recovery of our swallow was recorded in South Africa. For numerous species, a great dynamics in their autumn migration was established. The order, as far as the numbers of birds ringed in Slovenia in 1998 are concerned, is the following: S. atricapilla (27,428), H. rustica (17,065), S. borin (9,056), P. modularis (6,987), E. rubecula (6,120), A. scirpaceus (5,072), P. major (4,852), P. collybita (4,805), A. palustris (3,466) in R.. regulus (3,021). The species that were known as rare till then, suddenly became even common. With numerous Slovene as well as foreign recoveries of ringed Penduline Tits (R. pendulinus), an important migratory route across Slovenia to the Mediterranean was established, and many of our recoveries have greatly supplemented the picture of the migratory routes of European birds to their wintering grounds in Africa. On the Vrhnika trapping grounds' list of ringed birds, species confirmed in Slovenia for the first time have also appeared, such as Blyth's Reed Warbler (A. dumetorum), Paddyfield Warbler (A. agricola), Booted Warbler (A. caligatus) and Yellow-Browed Warbler (P. inornatus). In 1999, another new species new to Slovenia was recorded, i.e. Pallas's Warbler (P. proregulus), and yet another in 2000, i.e. Red-flanked Bluetail (Tarsiger cyanurus). Reports on many of these new species have been published in the Slovene ornithological journal Acrocephalus. After 1997, the so-called Ornithological News for Ringers have been published regularly (in Slovene), in which data on the numbers of ringed birds as well as on our and foreign recoveries can be found. For some years, the ringed birds have been constantly increasing in numbers (Fig. 1), and in 1999 precisely 118,248 birds were ringed in Slovenia. All these results, however, would not have been possible without our ringers, the number of which has for some years varied around 60. There are quite a few of them who manage to ring a few thousand birds per year. The highest number in 1999 was reached by a ringer with 21,170 birds, followed by four ringers with 15,548, 11,269, 11,052 and 10,547 ringed birds. There were no less than seventeen (17) people who ringed more than 1,000 birds in that particular year. All these results are of course closely associated with our new method of bird attraction called "night effect" (NE), which has been used successfully from 1995 onwards. In 2000, the Slovene Museum of Natural History ordered a special programme for the entry and processing of data on ringed birds, based on independent application for WINDOWS 95, 98 and 2000. This year, 30 ringers have thus already made reports on ringed birds for the year 2000 with this programme via diskettes. Our wishes for the future are: to supplement the picture of migratory routes of different bird species with emphasis on Reed and Marsh Warblers (A. scirpaceus/palustris), greater participation in international projects and, last but not least, to increase the number of employed professional ornithologists at the "BRC LJUBLJANA", where the current single employee is simply not enough. Fig. 1: The number of ringed birds in Slovenia (1989-1999)
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