The 3rd Advanced Banding Course by ProAves was carried out from October 19 to October 29, 2007 at the El Dorado Bird Reserve; 21 students from Nicaragua, Panamá, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia attended, as well as four expert ringers and instructors from Colombia.

Latin American Integration

Attendants to the III Advanced Banding Course at the El Dorado Bird Reserve in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia.

The work setting facilitated the main objective of the course: to reinforce and study in depth the concepts of age and sex identification, as well as a number of ringing techniques for resident and migratory birds in the Sierra Nevada. Additionally, attendants studied techniques for capturing, handling, ringing and processing hummingbirds.

Among the most outstanding achievements were:

  The capture and ringing of 376 specimens belonging to 17 families and 70 species, and the outstanding presence of migratory, endangered and/or endemic species of interest like Golden-winged Warbler, Blossomcrown, Santa Marta Mountain-Tanager and Santa Marta Brush-Finch.

  The detailed observation of both the level and the progress of each one of the participants, whose level was evaluated by the end of the course: three assistant ringers, fifteen ringers, and three advanced ringers who can perform as trainers, thanks to their higher level of experience.

With this course, ProAves keeps strengthening the technical abilities of field ornithologists in Colombia and Latin America.