Gallery of colour banded birds
Recording colour bands
Record the species - Red Knot, Great Knot or Bar-tailed Godwit.
Record flag colour and position - In these examples the leg flags are yellow and are recorded as YLF (Yellow Leg Flag) / UL or UR (Upper Left or Upper Right). An alternative is to use numbers to denote the flag postion, as in the colour band chart.
Record band colours on the bird's left leg - upper and then lower.
Record band colours on the bird's right leg - upper and then lower.
Important
Remember that records are relative to the bird (left or right), not relative to your point of view.
This bird is BTG 1RBRB or BTG YLF UL RBRB. Image: © 2007 Adrian Boyle. Press image for enlargement.
This bird is RK 1YRYR or RK YLF UL YRYR. Image: © 2007 Sebastian Merle. Press image for enlargement.
This bird is BTG 1YBBL or BTG UL YBBL. Image: © 2007 Adrian Boyle. Press image for enlargement.
This bird is BTG 1LRYL or BTG YLF UL LRYL. Image: © 2007 Adrian Boyle. Press image for enlargement.
This bird is GK 1BBBR or GK YLF UL BBBR. This is a difficult one as the bird is walking and it can be easy to mix up left and right legs. Image: © 2007 Chris Hassell. Press image for enlargement.
This bird is BTG 2LLBY or BTG YLF UR LLBY. I don’t expect you to record birds in flight! Image: © 2007 Adrian Boyle. Press image for enlargement.