African Ringing Expeditions

For upcoming Bird Ringing Courses see: http://thebdi.org/upcoming-bdi-events/

The Biodiversity & Development Institute (BDI) is a non-profit research entity in South Africa. We are offering unique and immersive bird ringing courses in South Africa, designed to provide opportunities for ringing African birds. The bird ringing taking place during these courses contributes to long-term research projects. We have designed these courses to run for six to seven days at several different and unique locations. Thus far we had held ringing courses in the Northern Cape and Western Cape Provinces of South Africa, with the aim of expanding to other locations throughout South Africa. Our expedition leaders are vastly experienced ringers who have PhDs based on ornithological topics. For the course venues, we carefully select sites to maximise the number of species that can be netted and ringed. We also make sure to provide safe and comfortable accommodation options, hearty South African food, and a superb overall experience!

We take care of accommodation, food, and all of the bird ringing equipment. All bird ringing occurs under our permits and under the auspices of the South African Ringing Scheme (SAFRING). Our bird ringing courses provide wonderful opportunities to ring African birds, to interact with local ornithologists and conservationists, to contribute to important long-term citizen-science projects, and to experience delightful accommodation in spectacular landscapes. In this series of linked pages we will highlight some of the details of our courses, including more information about who we are, what we do and why we are passionate about these bird ringing courses, what happens during an course, where the courses occur, and when they occur. More details can be obtained by contacting us directly. We hope that you will join us on one of our future courses, and that you’ll use the course as a springboard for exploring other parts of South Africa.

Find out more about the expeditions:

General:

Botuin birds
05/06/2023
Over 3 visits to Botuin, we caught 748 birds of 57 species! Situated on the outskirts of Vanrhynsdorp makes it very accessible with a normal car, but has an amazing variety of birds. There are resident Namaqua Warblers, Karoo Scrub Robins, Fiscal Flycatchers, sparrows and weavers, and other species in the garden area. Some other special birds […]
Bird ringing at Grotto Bay, 27 May 2023
30/05/2023
The Biodiversity and Development Institute (BDI) hosted a Citizen Science Day, Saturday, 27 May 2023, with a focus on bird ringing at Grotto Bay Private Nature Reserve. The reserve has an area of 385 ha, and the vegetation consists of Strandveld and Sandveld. Ringers had their nets up on a very cold morning, and it took a short while to start […]
Bird ringing course at Ouberg Nature Reserve, 10 to 16 May 2023
19/05/2023
A cold and sometimes wet Karoo week was not the best for a ringing course, yet everyone thoroughly enjoyed the course! We caught 219 birds of 29 species at the Ouberg bird ringing course of May 2023, including lots of recaptures, enjoyed wonderful meals, and great camaraderie. The course was part of a series of bird ringing courses run by the […]
Bird ringing at Vondeling Wine Farm, April 2023
18/04/2023
A BDI team visited Vondeling Wine Farm to do some exploratory ringing and bird monitoring from Thursday 13 April to Sunday 16 April 2023. Besides the ringing, we did repeat counts of waterbirds on four farm dams, and made a special effort to get as many photographic records as feasible for the BirdPix section of the Virtual Museum. Friday morning […]
The value of bird ringing to research and conservation
31/03/2023
What do we learn from bird ringing? The first, quick and obvious answer is that ringing helps us understand movement patterns of birds. The more subtle answer is that it provides estimates of survival rates; these are estimated by statistical methods and are important because they help us understand the balance between births and deaths. The third […]

Find more of our ringing posts here.