Yesterday was a day of high temperatures and not just the continued
barmy weather.
First, I got very wound up and my piss stated to boil by the
blingers at Fornebu. On a number of my visits this autumn I have, upon getting
out of the car, been greeted by the sounds of a Best of Eastern Vagrants mix
tape being played by a net which is a whole 250m away. This goes on for at
least three hours whilst the blinger(s) hope they will pull a rarity from the
nets and completely disturbs all other life (both bird and human) in the nature
reserve. Raising my displeasure about it hasn’t resulted in any change in actions and nor have
any rarities been pulled from the nets (far more is recorded here by birders
with bins than blingers with bling). Well, the tape (or in these days digital
recording) was playing again yesterday and my heart dropped and blood started
to boil at the thought of another ruined visit. I found an area though where I
could stand which was a bit sheltered from the noise by the lay of the land and
actually found some birds. All this time I was able to observe that the net was
not being checked (way over half an hour) and when I did eventually spy the
blingers they were engaged in an extended selfie photo shoot with a scarce bird
they had caught and then proceeded to parade it around. Everything I was
observing was against the rules governing ringing in Norway and is why for a
lot of us ringing has such a bad reputation – for far too many blingers it is a hunt for rarities and good
times hiding behind the excuse of being an important scientific activity (that is
the only legal reason that people are allowed to trap birds and put them
through the inherent stress and discomfort this causes them).
Just so it is clear I am a big supporter of the serious Constant
Effort Scheme ringing that is carried out at two Bird Observatories in Norway plus some other Observatories that take their work monitoring birds very seriously even if they do not have the resources to run CES schemes. I also fully support specific research with a conservation goal and cheer the use of modern technology that means a single tagged bird can answer more questions than 100 years and 10,000 birds worth of old fashioned ringing ever managed. But it's all the ad-hoc "let’s find a rarity" ringing that boils my piss. And further
boiling occurs because many blingers don’t see the problem – birds are just
objects to be (physically) exploited for their enjoyment. I think the problem is that the ringers get so caught up in the excitement of the catch (it triggers a basic human instinct) that they forget exactly what they are doing and why they are supposed to be doing it - it is the exact same instinct that drives photographers, twitchers and birders in general to chase birds and sometimes cross boundaries but the one important distinction is that only one of these requires a specific dispensation in law to be carried out.
For anyone interested, here is a summary of the laws/rules/guidelines for ringing in Norway (all in Norwegian of course).
There are very few explicit laws that govern ringing but two
things that are stated very clearly are that trapped birds shall be ringed and
released immediately and traps and nets should be continually watched (“Ved
bruk av fangstredskap for å ringmerke fugl og merke flaggermus, skal fangede
individer straks merkes og slippes fri. Fangstredskapet skal være under kontinuerlig tilsyn når det står til
fangst.”)
These rules are almost impossible for single ringer to follow so the body charged with organising
ringing in Norway has in its handbook decided to define continuous as meaning
at least every 30 minutes and with ringed birds has allowed for there to be a 5
minute photo shoot after the bird has been processed and ringed.
Make of that what you will and also remember that if you
ever witness ringing in action. How long is it really acceptable for a bird to
hang in a net on damp morning right beside a loud speaker at full volume and in
an area where cats prowl and humans walk with their dogs?
I had a long email exchange with the two bodies responsible
for ringing in Norway way back in 2014. This was as a result of a young Great
Grey Owl being found with a broken leg due to a twig having got stuck between
its leg and the ring and the bird would have died a long, painful death had it
not been found (although I suspect that it exchanged that for being put down). I
contacted the authorities-that-be to hear what the consequences of this would
be as clearly the ring had either not been attached properly or perhaps a wrong
ring size was used. The reply I got was literally “shit happens” and I also
found out that there was no reporting on how many birds that died during the
course of ringing but was assured it's not a problem even though they had zero data to back that up. There was a data field for this in the reporting software but it was not active. I expressed my shock at the cowboy like
state of affairs but have since then kept my feelings on ringing mostly
to myself as I feel there are few birders here who share my concerns.
It was therefore very pleasing to see in the Ringers
Handbook (in the link above) published in 2025 (but seemingly written in 2021
and promised in 2017…) that ringers now have to report dead birds in the now
activated data field and it actually says that anyone who deliberately neglects
to do so will see the removal of their ringing licence (en bevisst neglisjering av dette [dead birds]
vil medføre at merkelisensen blir inndratt eller ikke fornyet) so it looks like
when I thought I was banging my head against a wall that I may have actually brought about some change for the good. Maybe I will
have to recharge my attempt to make Norwegian Ringing Ethical Again.
The second annoyance of the day was that a Pallid Swift was
found and I didn’t see it. As I arrived to look over the fjord from Fornebu a
message came through that a Pallid Swift was at Nesoddtangen. I could see
Nesoddtangen from where I was standing and through the scope could see the person
who had sent the message at a range of 3.5km. But the persons (there were
actually 3 of them) did not look like they were actually watching a swift. It
transpired that the bird had been seen for half an hour and the finder had
managed to inform local birders who managed to get there and see it but by the
time the rest of us were informed that bird had disappeared not to be seen
again. Just as well probably because I would then have had to decide whether
the views would have been “tickable” or not. I did however have to answer that conundrum today after the bird was refound this morning but my decision will have to wait until my next blog post.
Did I see any birds though? I had three Bearded Tits and three
Chiffchaff in the reedbed at Storøykilen and one of the chiffies was a tristis
with a ring on. While looking for the Pallid Swift I was informed that the long
staying but not often seen King Eider was on the fjord off of Nesoddtangen and
sure enough on a mirror flat sea I could make it out at a range of 3.5km and
those views were just about tickable.
In Maridalen all the Whooper Swans and the Pink-footed Geese have left and Jack saw a family of 4 Whoopers and a Pink-foot flying over Sørkedalen which were surely from the Dale. A single Pygmy Owl revealed it self to me in the same place as before and has presumably found a good hunting ground although I have yet to see it catch anything.
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| female Bearded Tit (skjeggmeis) |
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| pair |
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| a ringed tristis Chiffchaff. In addition to looking right it also had the right call |
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| this unringed bird also looks like a tristis (in fact looks pretty much identical to the ringed bird above) but did not give the right call when I was watching it although that doesn't rule it out from being a tristis |
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| Pygmy Owl (spurveugle) - one of at least 3 birds that have been discovered in Maridalen this autumn |
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| where I was stood, where the Pallid Swift was seen and where the King Eider was swimming. Birding as it should be ;-) |
