Bu-Long / Red-Yellow-Red + metal

These rings were recovered from the dead carcass of a bird banded as 6 to 7-week-old young, on 23 June 1990 in Germany by W. Mewes. The bird was found dead on 25 October 1997 in Spain, 7 years and 4 months later (by Llo, MGC & AFe). The bird had been observed still alive for the last time, in the same locality were it died, 20 days earlier. In the meantime it had been observed at least 17 times, either in Germany or Spain. 

It should be noticed that the small red rings have lost the colour layer in some parts. Remember that the colour rings are made of white PVC with an external colour layer.

In autumn 1996, six years after banding, VGü and the ringer, WMe, reported the bird with at least the bottom red ring already “whitish”. We think that most of the white colour might be due to the abrassion of the three individual code colour rings against the Blue-Long country colour ring, while the bird was walking.

To take the rings away from the dead bird they had to be open. The external end of the upper red ring, to the left side in the picture, was then partly broken (see that the end corners are not rounded, like in the lower one, right side of the picture). It is possible to see how under the missing (broken) end of the red ring, the glue used to safely close the rings have disolved the red external layer of the ring.