About MRG

Useful links to ringing-related organisations.

Members' pages for MRG members only.

2010 Annual Report free to download here.

History of the Group

Rob Cockbain and Graham Thomason, both still active members of the Group, originally formed a ringing partnership in 1954. Later, at the suggestion of Bob Spencer, then Head of the Ringing Scheme at the BTO, this was transformed into a ringing group, and the MRG was born. The name 'Merseyside' was intended to reflect the Group's area of operations, around the Mersey, and not to mean the specific area that became a county in the 1974 reorganisation of local government.

To celebrate our 50th anniversary, the Group has produced a special report. This is 88 pages of A4 size, summarising hundreds of spectacular ringing recoveries in maps, tables and text, and some of the papers published by MRG members. You can find out more by clicking on the image below, or download a free copy by clicking here.

Merseyside Ringing Group was proud to host the North West England and North Wales Ringers' Conference on Saturday 27 November 2004, jointly with the BTO. This was held to mark the 50th anniversary of the formation of MRG. For more information about the conference, including a report of the talks and some photographs, please click here.

On 1 November 2008 Merseyside Ringing Group and South Manchester Ringing Group jointly hosted a NW England Ringers' Conference. A brief summary and some images from the conference are here.

Activities of MRG

The Group now numbers some 35 members, ringing a wide variety of birds at a range of sites, mostly in the counties of Cheshire and Merseyside in North West England and Flintshire and Denbighshire in North Wales. Click here to see MRG's ringing totals for the year 2002 and the grand totals for 1954-2002. An indication of the area of activity is provided by this map of England, Wales and southern Scotland, showing the 10km squares in which birds were ringed by the Group in 2002; this map does not give any measure of the number of birds ringed or the intensity of effort at any site, merely the geographical spread of sites in the national context.

The map below gives a more detailed view of Cheshire, Merseyside and the old county of Clwyd, with an indication of the Group's 2002 ringing sites plotted by 2km square; again, this map does not give any measure of the number of birds ringed or the intensity of effort at any site.

Members of MRG also study a lot of breeding birds, and complete Nest Record Cards for many of them. Click here to see MRG's totals of Nest Record Cards for the year 2002 and the grand totals for 1990-2002. Note that the ringing totals and the nest totals from year to year may well reflect changes in effort or other circumstances, such as the restrictions on access to some sites during the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in 2001, and should not be taken to indicate changes in the populations of the birds. Also, some of the nests have been recorded by members whilst outside the normal area of the Group.

Education

As part of our commitment to education, members of the Group give talks to local societies and lead ringing demonstrations at a variety of sites including Oxmoor Local Nature Reserve (Runcorn), Woolston Eyes (Warrington), Wirral Country Park (Thurstaston), Norton Priory (Runcorn), Delamere Forest and Marbury Country Park. More information about some of the recent ringing demonstrations is given here.

Local and national connections

We work closely with other ringers, individuals, partnerships and colleagues in other Ringing Groups including South Manchester Ringing Group, Morecambe Bay Wader Group, Hilbre Island Bird Observatory and South West Lancashire Ringing Group.

As well as submitting our data, as with all ringing information, to the BTO nationally, selected records are submitted locally to Cheshire and Wirral Ornithological Society (CAWOS) and the Clwyd Bird Recording Group (click here for more information about the Clwyd Bird Report for 2002). All data for the appropriate areas are deposited with rECOrd, the Local Record Centre for Cheshire, Halton, Warrington & Wirral.