Combination of 2 c-rings and a metal ring (some with coloured tape).
note 1 : used colours are : white, yellow, orange, red, dark-green, dark-blue, and black.
note 2 : Adoption of alien chicks of Avocet in Hungary.
The colour-ringing project is started to study whether adoption of alien chicks by parents occurs in the Hungarian population of Avocets. Also, we are interested in the post-breeding movements and next-year return rates of fledged chicks. As Hungarian Avocets are known to winter in many different areas of Europe (starting from the Atlantic coast of France to North Africa and Italy), it is very important that all resightings are reported at the address given below. During the project we ringed chicks above the tarsometatarsus at the nest right after hatching. The chicks were ringed with the following three rings: one aluminum ring of the Hungarian Ornithological Society (HOS) and 2 colour rings. I used seven colours: white, yellow, orange, red, dark green, dark blue and black. The three rings could be placed anywhere above the tarsometatarsus of chicks in any order, which gave me a high number of combinations. I used one combination for each brood and differentiated among chicks with sticking a piece of tape on the HOS aluminum rings. The tape could be either of the following four colours: white, yellow, red, black. The tape pieces came off in a few weeks but there still may be some grown-up chicks running around with the tape on the aluminum ring, which makes reading of the rings a little more difficult. I ringed almost 800 chicks between 1998 and 2000 and one adult (this latter one was ringed with one HOS aluminum ring - with no tape attached to it - and three colour rings). Of the colours used, blue is know to fade into a very-hard-to-tell colour, and the aluminium ring becomes yellowish after some years. We plan to continue the colour-ring program in 2003.
