{"id":16404,"date":"2019-11-11T09:32:19","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T07:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/we-successfully-completed-the-sixth-consecutive-ringing-season-on-chituc-spit\/"},"modified":"2019-11-11T09:32:19","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T09:32:19","slug":"we-successfully-completed-the-sixth-consecutive-ringing-season-on-chituc-spit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milvus.ro\/en\/we-successfully-completed-the-sixth-consecutive-ringing-season-on-chituc-spit\/","title":{"rendered":"We successfully completed the sixth consecutive ringing season on Chituc Spit!"},"content":{"rendered":"Written by: Attila Marton<\/a>\n\nMost migratory birds cross Europe using two main routes: the East-Atlantic flyway is used by birds from Eastern Canada, Greenland and Western Europe, which pass to Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar, while the Pontic-Mediterranean flyway gathers birds from Central- and Eastern Europe and the western part of Asia. Songbirds avoid flying over large bodies of water; thus, they follow the Black Sea coast while crossing Romania. Chituc Spit is a sandbank located south of the Danube Delta, wedged between Lake Sinoe and the sea, and is one of the last of wild beaches in the country. Due to the NE-SW orientation and the positioning between two large water surfaces, the spit acts as a funnel for migrating songbirds, but it is widely used also by other migratory species. The fully protected status within the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve voids this place from human impact, and allows birds to feed and rest undisturbed throughout the migration period.\n\nAfter an absence of 17 years, Milvus Group organizes every autumn since 2014 a ringing camp on Chituc Spit, with the aim of researching bird migration in the area. The ringing activity runs for 14 to 17 weeks, from mid-July to early November. The mist-nets are located in three types of habitats: in the reed bed (180 m), in shrubs (110 m) and in semi-open habitat (80 m), and sum up to a total length of 370 m. Some of these nets were added in the last two years, but the data collected in different years can be compared by applying some correction methods (e.g. correction to the total length of nets).\n\n