Pictured: Colourful Kingfisher caught before being ringed

[Snowden]

Pictured: Colourful Kingfisher caught before being ringed


By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:28 AM on 02nd July 2008



Beak wide open and clearly in distress, this bird appears to have hopelessly trapped itself in garden netting.

In fact the tiny kingfisher in this extraordinary photograph was captured by experts recording bird numbers and movements.

They used a fine-mesh 'mist net' to trap 26 more specimens including goldfinches, wrens, robins, starlings, goldcrests and reed warblers.

For his own good: A kingfisher rests in a catch net before
being ringed and weighed.

The work was carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology on the Axe estuary in East Devon last week.

Mike Tyler, who led the exercise, said his team caught five kingfishers in three hours.

'This is the highest number we have got in one go,' he said. 'Kingfishers travel so fast that people tend not to see them.

'These photographs were taken with a very fast digital camera.'

Ringed: The bird endures the tricky procedure on its legs

The birds were added to the trust's database which every year logs 800,000 specimens across Britain and Ireland.

All the captives are weighed, measured and given a visual health check before being released with a leg ring (circled right) to identify them if they are found or caught again.

Mr Tyler added: 'It's important we do not harm the birds because the idea of ringing them is to see how far they go, where they go, and how long they live.'

Beauty: The birds were caught in the River Axe estuary



Escape: The bird is released

Pictured: Colourful Kingfisher caught before being ringed | Mail Online

[conlor]

It is a very pretty bird! Looks pist too.

[Woodmonkey]

Pretty bird.

[Snowden]

He's a beautiful little bird.

Yes, he probably was very annoyed!