Ring, ring, why don't you give me a ring?

Last weekend, something happened in my garden that had never happened before: I caught all my birds.

I should explain. A colleague and all round good-egg, Rich, and his lovely dad Peter came round to 'ring' the birds in my garden.

I'm sure that many of you are familiar with bird ringing, but if not, it is a technique in which very fine nets (called 'mist nets') are slung between two poles.

Birds don't see the net, they fly into it, and get caught in pockets in the net. They are quickly and expertly extracted by experienced and licenced ringers (for the sake of the birds, ringing is only be done by qualified people).

The birds are measured and weighed, and a small metal ring is put on their leg, the right size ring for the right bird and on the right leg. And away the birds go, none the worse for their experience. Here's one of my Great Tits in the act of being ringed.

The value of the work is that, should those birds turn up in another net on another date, then we get an insight into their lives such as where they go, when they go and how long they live. The scheme is administered by the British Trust for Ornithology, and you can find out lots more about how it all works here.

But back to my garden. I was intrigued to see if I learnt anything new about 'my' birds and how they use the garden.

The six nets were unfurled at first light, and then checked every 20 minutes through until about 1pm. In that time, 46 birds of 14 species found themselves in the nets.

Now I record the birds daily in my garden, but never see more than two Wrens at a time. In those six hours, three Wrens were ringed.

Similarly, I never see more than three Dunnocks at the same time, but in the ringing session we caught five.

Watching bird ringing also allows you the privilege of seeing birds up close, which reveals things you would otherwise never see. For example, we caught a Chiffchaff...

...which allows you to see the 'wing formula', which is a way of looking at differences in the wing feather shapes to conclusively separate them from Willow Warblers.

I also didn't know that in the past some people knew of Blue Tits as 'Billy Biter', but here I got to see why:

We didn't catch any birds that already carried a ring, which is what you really hope for. But at least these 46 birds are now out there and may be caught by someone else, somewhere else, helping us understand a little bit more about our birds and how they are faring, which then gives us a bit more information to help save them.

And you know what? After Rich and Peter had left, the first bird I saw in the garden was a Dunnock, but without a ring: at least the sixth in the garden that day!