Slovak Ornithological Society

Bird ringing in Slovakia is organized by the Bird Ringing Centre (Krúžkovacia centrála) at the Slovak Ornithological Society/BirdLife Slovakia (SOS/BL Slovakia). Bird ringing in the area of Slovakia started in 1908 at the Hungarian Ornithological Society because our country was then part of the Hungarian kingdom. The Czechoslovak Ornithological Society was established in 1926 and bird ringing started in cooperation with the National Museum in Prague in 1934. These scientific organisations organized bird ringing in Slovakia until 2001. The Slovak Ornithological Society has organized bird ringing in Slovakia with Slovak rings since 2002.

As of today, the SOS/BirdLife Slovakia database holds data on some 255 bird species and close to 900,000 birds ringed with Slovak rings. Numbers of birds ringed per year increased constantly in the last 15 years and reached 62,455 birds in 2020. The number of recoveries has now reached almost 90,000 since 2002. This includes data on retraps, recoveries of dead birds and colour-ring resightings. Colour rings and neck collars have increased the number of resightings substantially, especially for some bird species such as swans, geese, gulls and raptors. This is the result of fieldwork by more than 120 ringers working mainly as volunteers.

Slovakia is located in Central Europe. We do not have access to the sea, so our data include mainly continental bird species and just exceptionally some recoveries of seabirds. But Slovakia is located on the interface of Eastern and Western bird migration routes. Most of the birds breeding and migrating through Slovakia use the Eastern migration route but some of the species and individuals migrate to western Europe. Most of the recoveries occur in Hungary to the south and Poland to the north. One of the most successful and popular ringing programmes in Slovakia is the ringing of White Stork chicks on nests (about 1000 nestlings are ringed every year) resulting in hundreds of recoveries and providing interesting data on migration, ecology and ethology of the species. The unique research station in Drienovec N 48.37" E 20.55" has been a member of SEEN ringing stations since 2006.  The CES method is applied in 10 ringing sites across Slovakia.