Welcome to the new SAFRING website.
To log into the site, use your email address and EITHER your ADU number or your SAFRING number. The password is the same password used for all ADU projects.
If you do not have a password, follow this link to generate one for your account.
SAFRING's mission: SAFRING is based at the University of Cape Town and provides bird ringing services in South Africa and other African countries. This entails providing ringing equipment to qualified ringers, and curating all ringing data. SAFRING communicates with ringers and interested parties through annually publishing one or two issues of a newsletter, Afring News, and by maintaining a list server. SAFRING holds national training courses, annually if there is sufficient demand. SAFRING liases with the provinces who have the responsibility of issuing permits. SAFRING has a strict code of ethics to ensure the safety of birds handled. SAFRING acknowledges the importance of bird ringing in that it has been described as the most important tool in ornithology in the 20th century.
The South African Bird Ringing Unit (SAFRING) administers bird ringing in southern Africa, supplying rings, ringing equipment and services to volunteer and professional ringers in South Africa and neighbouring countries. All ringing records are curated by SAFRING, which is an essential arm of the Animal Demography Unit. Contact is maintained by the SAFRING Project Coordinator with all ringers (banders in North American or Australian terminology).
Dieter Oschadleus (2013-04-29)
Three new Afring News articles have been added, one is a summary of ringing in Namibia in 2012 and two on ringing at White Elephant Lodge, Kwazulu-Natal.
Read and download here.
Photo: Red-billed Oxpecker caught at White Elephant Lodge (Lyndon Roberts)
Richard Sherley (2013-04-17)
A team from the University of Cape Town studying the Southern African population of Swift Terns Thalasseus bergii has recently put engraved color-rings and metal rings on ca. 300 chicks at Robben Island (location in the image below, left) in order to better understand changes in the population numbers of this species. With your help, we will be able to estimate survival, dispersal and movement patterns in this species. Any reports from inside and outside South Africa of color-ringed Swift Terns (dead or alive) are crucial to this program and to the conservation of seabirds.
If you see a tern with a ring and are willing to help, please report the sighting to our team at: swift.terns@gmail.com
In your report please note:
1) Location of birds as accurately as possible (GPS if possible).
2) Date and time of sighting.
3) Color of the ring.
4) Characters on the ring, e.g. A7 (majority of rings are top-down and all are on the right leg).
5) Age class (immature or adult).
6) Number of metal ring (if found dead).
Ring colors are: - Yellow with black text - White with black text - Green with white text - Blue with white text and the specific codes used can be found here.
Thank you for your help!
The Swift Tern Team
Dieter Oschadleus (2013-04-10)
Last week five new interns arrived at the ADU to start a year of gaining valuable work experience in biodiversity research and conservation. Their appointments are all funded and supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and National Research Foundation (NRF). Three have been assigned to MammalMAP, one to SABAP2 and one to SAFRING. Although they will be involved primarily with their respective projects, they will also assist with some of the other monitoring projects and day-to-day tasks at the ADU. Honing their survey, monitoring and practical skills will be done through regular field trips with the different project coordinators and other post-doc researchers currently at the ADU.
Carvern Jacobs is the new SAFRING intern and he will assist with processing recoveries, data checking and general administration tasks. We warmly welcome Carvern to the ADU!
To view Carvern's profile, and those of the other interns, click here.
Les Underhill (2013-03-16)
The prepublication offer for the butterfly atlas will remain open until the end of March, two weeks time.
During April, CTP will print the number of copies that have been ordered, and as soon as they are delivered (during May), Netbooks will distribute the books to those who have bought copies.
Act today, otherwise you will lose out on an awesome addition to your bookshelf.
More details about the book are available here. If you are outside of South Africa and want to purchase the book, or if you want to pay by credit card, go directly to the Netbooks website. If you are inside South Africa and want to pay by EFT, go here and proceed to the order form at the bottom of the page.
Dieter Oschadleus (2013-03-13)
On 8 March the new ringing centre in the Grootvaly wetland was opened. Stan Madden, former bird ringer, campaigned for several years for funding to establish a permanent ringing centre.
 Stan Madden - opening speech (Ernst Retief seated) |
 Audience at the opening |
After the specches a proposal was submitted to call this the Stan Madden Ringing Centre! Then nets were put up and ringing continued from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning.
 The centre (from the Blesbok River) |
 Ringing outside the hall |
Mostly Southern Masked Weavers and Southern Red Bishops were caught. The adults were starting body and primary moult, as can be seen in the yellow feather on the mask of the weaver male, and the first two primaries of the bishop.
 Southern Masked Weaver |
 Southern Red Bishop |
Other species that were caught include Dark-capped Bulbuls, Levaillants Cisticola, Lesser Swamp Warblers, African Reed Warblers, two Greater Swamp Warblers, and Red-billed Queleas.
These are species that can be caught elsewhere, but there is great potential for ringing waterbirds. Many ducks, stilts, a flamingo and waders were seen. Waterbird traps will be constructed for use at the centre.
Waterbirds feature in the early history of the Blesbok. The first birds to be ringed here were waders on 26/01/1974, by Manfred Schmitt, who trained Stan and others. Before this, several Yellow-billed Ducks were recovered here - they had been ringed at Barberspan. Over the years, other waterbirds have been recovered from here as well. With renewed interest in waterbird ringing at Barberspan, there is the possibility of retrapping ringed waterbirds at the Grootvaly centre.
Accommodation is free, so make use of the opportunity to ring at the centre!
Satellite photo of the centre (from Google Maps)
1. Open parking area
2. Main hall
3. Covered parking
4. Boardwalk
5. Bird hide
Turn-off to centre -26.213258,28.48227 (green arrow in map above)
Coords for centre -26.219801,28.483196
| The Grootvaly Bird Ringing Centre was established by the Grootvaly Blesbokspruit Conservation Trust as well as the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality. The centre will be managed by the Trust in co-operation with BirdLife South Africa and the Animal Demography Unit.
The purpose of the Grootvaly Ringing Centre is to collect avian data to monitor bird movements and numbers within the Blesbokspruit Important Bird Area. All qualified ringers are invited to use the facilities to ring and to educate the general public about ringing and bird conservation in general. |
You can download the ringers protocol here.
Sunset at the boardwalk
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Stan Madden, Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, Ernst Retief and everyone else for their hard work to make this opening event happen!
Thanks to the ringers who came on the weekend: Ella and John Roberts, Craig Symes, Craig Nattrass, Gert Opperman, and Grant Egen.
