Scientific ringing

20 December 2022

A few days ago, we had the last training day of scientific ringing of this 2022, a process that began last July. This has been possible, first of all, thanks to Oscar García, from the Societat Ornitológica de Menorca (SOM), but also thanks to the relevant permits, and to the work that had been done since the beginning of the year.

There is no specific profit motive behind it: it is about doing our bit to give a boost to ornithology in Eivissa and Formentera. A boost that, in order to really have an effect, will have to be added to that of other organisations on the island that have the technical capacity and resources necessary to do so, something we are sure will come to fruition sooner rather than later.

The training has included trips off the island, where several of our technicians have been participating in the ringing campaign of the post-nuptial migration, carried out by the Institut Català d'Ornitologia (ICO) in the Delta de l'Ebre; so no doubt we have to thank the ICO for having made room for us.

We must also, without a doubt, be happy with the response of the staff: training involves effort and costs for everyone, and to a greater or lesser extent, everyone has had to assume some kind of cost in terms of free or economic time, apart from those that the company assumes in order to make this initiative viable.

The ringing is done in an environment where we are quite limited, with very few meters of net and fewer days than we would like, but even so, we have worked with 12 different species... if we take into account that a week in the Delta translates into an average of 25 different species, we understand the importance of being able to train both locally (however little is done), and in migration campaigns where the nets work almost every hour of the day.

That said, we share some photos of the different days: