With this ring...

The scientific practice of ringing birds has unlocked many avian mysteries

- Paul Morton

As I have said numerous times in this column, Dorset is a migration hotspot for many thousands of birds throughout the year. To understand the true scale of this migration you need to monitor population trends, assess breeding success and calculate the health and longevity of each species. One way to do this is to go birding at a good migration spot and note everything you see and log it with the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) via their Bird Track App. However, a more detailed and scientific method, which provides mountains of data, is by bird ringing. This first started in the UK in 1909 when two researchers began putting homemade metal rings on birds legs to try and work out where birds went in the spring and autumn.