Ring-driven thing

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Ornithology

Jan 6th 2005
From The Economist print edition

The oldest bird in the world

UNTIL recent decades, not that many humans made it to 50 years of age, so it is impressive to find a bird that has done so—and a small bird at that. One of the Manx shearwaters recorded in the latest edition of the British Trust for Ornithology's Ringing Report, which summarises data collected in 2003, was given its ring in 1953. Indeed, since it was ringed as an adult, and Manx shearwaters take four years to reach that exulted status, it must have been significantly over half a century old when researchers at the Copeland Bird Observatory in Northern Ireland checked its bona fides.

The British passion for birdwatching is well known, and often dismissed as “twitching” (though many twitchers themselves have adopted the label proudly). Nevertheless, this is one area of science where the mass observations provided by a large number of enthusiastic amateurs, backed up by those of a few ill-paid professionals who do it more for love than money, can provide vital scientific data.

Indeed, the Ringing Report contains some intriguing results. It was, for example, able to record the wandering of a wren from Cumbria in the north of England to Devon in the south—a distance of 400km (250 miles), and an astonishing hop for a bird so small. The report was also able to follow the movements of a ring-necked parakeet around London, as the British range of this colourful bird expanded. Naturalists tend to frown on such “exotic” species, regarding them as illegal aliens. But they certainly draw the eye when you see one in a London tree. And although the parakeets required human assistance to get from Asia to Britain, their arrival is only an extreme form of the constant, natural shuffling of species brought about by the movements of adventurous individuals which studies such as this seek to monitor.

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