Preliminary experiments on the reporting of the recovery of banded birds in south-eastern Australia

Abstract

A series of pilot experiments using birds banded after death and live banded birds was conducted to document the rate of reporting of bands and the effects of several factors (including species, band address, geographic location, band metal type) on the reporting rate. The reporting rate varied from 0 to 53% for dead banded birds, and from 0.7 to 3.9% for live banded birds. None of the experimental factors had an effect on the reporting rate. Data on the recovery details of bands were generally accurate but date of recovery had an error of up to 12 days. Finders of bands often made incorrect assumptions on the cause of death of birds. These results should be considered in current statistical analysis of banding data.