May 12, 2007
Colour flagging and banding research needs your help
You can help to put migration routes and stopover sites on the map by looking for colour marked birds travelling through the Asia Pacific in your part of the world and reporting them to the banding authority in your country or sending them through the APSN, who will make sure they reach the appropriate people. While thousands of hours and a lot of money is expended catching birds to colour flag or band birds this work is of little use unless people look for marked birds and report them the banding authorities.
Flagged birds on Roebuck Bay, NW Australia. © 2006 Ricki Coughlan. Press image for enlargement.
A lot is known about some of the main migration routes and staging areas (flyway sites) and we are learning more each year through the cooperative colour flagging programs currently being carried out, as you will see by the variety of flag combinations on our leg flag page. However there are still many mysteries about where some birds go on migration and during their non-breeding season. Because the area is so huge we can only hope to come up with these answers with the help of bird enthusiasts and through the many bird clubs being formed throughout the region.