The Hungarian Bird Ringing Centre has been operated by BirdLife Hungary (MME: Hungarian Ornithological and Nature Conservation Society) since 1976. The Montitoring Center has also been operated by BirdLife Hungary since the 1990s.
Systematic bird ringing in Hungary started in 1908 by the Hungarian Royal Ornithological Centre (later: Ornithological Institute) (by Ottó Herman and Jakab Schenk). The building of the institute was destroyed during WW2 in 1945 including the complete collection and bird ringing documentation. Only the data published in the Aquila journal remained from the time before 1951: the data of 2193 bird individuals, which are integrated to the EURING databank (EURING scheme codes: HGK, HGM, HGX).
From 1951 all ringing data is available and are completely digitalised (EURING scheme code: HGB). Hungarian ringing activity has been coordinated by BirdLife Hungary since 1976. Currently the number of registered ringers is 465, of whom approximately 270 are actively tagging birds each year (active ringers) recently. In the last decade, 220-260 thousand birds have been ringed in Hungary every year. Presently 7.6 million ringing and recovery data of 6.5 million birds are managed in the Hungarian bird ringing database.
An online bird ringing application has been used since 2014 (Tringa: T ring application, sponsored by T systems). Currently the app has 564 users.
Regular update to the EURING database is sent every 2 years. It contains all Hungarian dead/injured recovery data (HGB) and all the recapture and observation data with a displacement of more than 10 km.
Hungarian Bird Migration Atlas has been published by Kossuth Publishing Co. in 2009, where the results of 100 years of bird ringing in Hungary have been published.
The up-to-date visualisation (figures, maps and summaries by bird species, currently only in Hungarian language) of the databanks of the Hungarian Monitoring Centre and Ringing Centre are available in the knowledge base on the MME website, on the sub-page for birds of Hungary:
www.mme.hu/magyarorszagmadarai
So far, two EURING conferences have been organized in Hungary. The first was in Visegrád after the regime change in 1990 and the second in 2007 in the Fertő-Hanság National Park, in Sarród-Fertőújlak. Before the demolition of the Iron Curtain, representatives of Eastern European countries were rarely able to attend these meetings, therefore bird-ringing and migratory research conferences were held for socialist countries, too. It was held in Hungary twice: in 1979 and 1985.
Presently 12 ringing stations are operated in Hungary, where approximately half of the annual ringing data in the country are produced:
Sumony (Bank László) since 1981, 45.9694 17.8997
Ócsa (Dr. Csörgő Tibor) since 1983, 47.2966 19.2098
Fenékpuszta (Benke Anikó) since 1986, 46.7125 17.2491
Szalonna (Huber Attila) since 1986, 48.4588 20.7111
Szeged, Fehér-tó (Lovászi Péter) since 1988, 46.3472 20.1047
Naszály (Bátky Gellért) since 1991, 47.6956 18.272
Izsák, Kolon-tó (Németh Ákos) since 1998, 46.7708 19.3389
Tömörd (Dr. Gyurácz József) since 1998, 47.3563 16.6677
Farmos (Sári Gergő) since 2007, 47.3602 19.8288
Dávod (Mórocz Attila) since 2012, 45.9908 18.8663
Hortobágy (Koczka András) since 2016, 47.6082 21.0714
Fertői Madárvárta (Pellinger Attila), 47.694 16.8437
In 2004 Hungary joined CES and has recently operated 30-33 CES points per year.
Hungary is located in the Carpathian Basin, which is of outstanding importance for many migratory bird species. It is characterized by a wide variety of habitat types, providing proper nesting, migratory and wintering grounds for many bird species. So far, 420 bird species have been registered in Hungary, of which 211 are regular breeders. Migratory individuals of other bird species avoid the area due to the high mountain ranges of the Alps and the Carpathians, giving little recovery data.
In Hungary, the nearly 120-year-old bird ringing activity has brought outstanding results in the region. In the EURING atlas application, the number of data in Hungary is relatively high for the following bird species, so they are of outstanding importance at the European level as well: Pygmy Cormorant, Black-crowned Night Heron, Squacco Heron, Great Egret, Purple Heron, Black Stork, Glossy Ibis, Eurasian Spoonbill, Short-toed Snake Eagle, Long-legged Buzzard, Asian Imperial Eagle, Red-footed Falcon, Saker Falcon, Mediterranean Gull, European Roller, Syrian Woodpecker, Sand Martin, Moustached Warbler, Lesser Grey Shrike and in case of archive data: Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush, Rosy Starling.
Administrative data:
Hungarian Bird Ringing Centre
BirdLife Hungary (MME)
H-1121 Budapest
Költő u. 21.
E-mail: ringers@mme.hu
