SAFRING

About Us

The South African Bird Ringing Unit (SAFRING) is based at the University of Cape Town and is responsible for the administration of all bird ringing within Southern Africa and other African countries. This entails providing bird rings, ringing equipment, and services to volunteers (citizen scientists) and qualified ringers. SAFRING curates all the southern African ringing data on site and maintains a close relationship with all other ringing schemes.

SAFRING communicates with ringers via a mailing list and social media and liaises with provincial authorities who have the responsibility of issuing permits. SAFRING has a strict code of ethics to ensure the safety of birds handled.

Bird ringing/banding is the process whereby registered ringers permanently mark wild birds to study their lifecycles (births, deaths, age of breeding and survival rates), habits, populations and movements. To do this, metal rings (marked with unique numbers) are attached to the bird for future identification.

To find out more about bird ringing:

• Read “All about bird ringing”  by Dieter Oschadleus, in Promerops, issue 321, p.18.
• Read Birdlife South Africa's Position Statement on Bird Ringing.

News

New paper by SAFRING ringers on Lesser Grey Shrike

A paper by Ursula Bryson and Dane Paijmans, published in the Namibian Journal of Environment, presents biometric data on 356 Lesser Grey Shrikes Lanius minorthat the authors ringed during their non-breeding season in Namibia. The paper addresses critical gaps in knowledge about the species' plumage and also provides essential information for accurate ageing.