Supporting a ringing group in Portugal
An invitation to an all expenses paid trip to a ringing group in Porto, Portugal sounded like a wind-up, but turned out to be genuine. They wanted someone to talk about the benefits of long term and constant effort ringing at one site at a conference to celebrate five years of operation, and having found us by internet search and discovered we have fifty years under our belts, invited us to send a speaker. Roger Emmens took up the opportunity.
The Parque Biológico de Gaia is partly old farm museum, partly wildlife rehabilitation centre, and partly nature reserve, with an impressive visitor centre and an emphasis on educating the public. The Ringing Group there is funded by the Parque and resourced by the University, and operates every second Saturday, on a Constant Effort basis all year round.
This particular Saturday, besides being a regular visit (doubling as a ringing demonstration), formed part of a day of celebration of five years of ringing. The afternoon was taken up with talks on work at the Parque so far, about Portuguese ringing in general, and the results of a study on the Purple Heron (a sub-Saharan migrant which, curiously in these times of climate warming, has a long term trend of breeding later). The final presentation was Roger on fifty years at Rye Meads, highlighting not just constant effort but other data that can be derived from long term ringing; demonstrating some of the benefits of being there for the long haul seemed to go down well.
Above: Mist netting in the Parque Biológico de Gaia
Ringing in Portugal may be 50 years old, but in many respects is in its infancy. The Portuguese don't have the same culture of public interest in nature, or any real awareness of ringing, and the local equivalent of the BTO is under-resourced and struggling to deliver a service and modernise at the same time. There are few ringers and only a handful of CES sites, but everyone has great enthusiasm and seem determined to make it succeed.
"The Group were very welcoming, and all spoke remarkably good English. Unfortunately, the ringing was frankly a disappointment: October is when they get passage Robins and Blackbirds and a few Blackcaps, but all their summer visitors are already gone. So nothing unusual to see in the hand - they caught a Serin on the take-down round, when Roger had already been taken to the lecture room to set up. Nice however to see large flocks of Spotless Starling (which they referred to as the Black Starling), and large numbers of Yellow-Legged Gulls around the city - they are the local 'pest gull' breeding on Porto city roofs. "
There is of course a price to pay for any freebie. Fog rolled in shortly before Roger's return departure, with cancellation of all flights and total disinterest by Ryanair. Eventually he saved himself from a four day wait for a flight by taking a train to Lisbon, and a flight to Heathrow. Of course, the car was still at Stansted....
(October 2011)