Migration of Hangzhou's Mandarin ducks to be tracked around the world

A group of Mandarin ducks found at the renowned tourist resort of West Lake in east China's Hangzhou city have been tagged with ID bracelets and GPS tags so their migration can be tracked.

A photo taken on Thursday, June 21, 2018 shows a Mandarin duck banded with a nickel-copper bracelet and GPS tracker so that its migration can be tracked. [Photo: IC]

Six Mandarin ducks, including four adults and two children, that were captured in the West Lake on Thursday were banded with nickel-copper bracelets, and GPS devices were fitted onto five of them. This is the first time that Mandarin ducks in the city have been tagged. They join millions of migratory birds that are marked each year for scientific research.

Tagging and tracking the ducks will help scientists to understand whether the Mandarin ducks or their offspring travel far from where they were found in Hangzhou.

The nickel-copper bracelet is a global ID for migrant birds. It details the country where the bird was tagged, the organization that tagged it, and the type of bird that it is. This information enables researcher to track the movement and range of the birds during their migration.

The GPS trackers installed on the birds will send their location and body temperature to a tracking database every one to two hours.

A Mandarin duck banded with a nickel-copper bracelet is seen swimming at West Lake in Hangzhou on Thursday, June 21, 2018. [Photo: IC]

Research into the migration of birds in China was thrust unexpectedly into the public spotlight recently thanks to a bird nicknamed "Flappy McFlapperson". 

The Common Cuckoo was tagged by researchers at the Cuihu Urban Wetland in northern Beijing in May 2016 as part of an international effort to understand the migration patterns of the species. She came to worldwide fame online as she traveled across 61 countries, from north China to Mongolia, across Pakistan and India, over Oman and Yemen, and down the African continent through Ethiopia, Kenya, and DRC Congo before finally stopping in Mozambique for the winter. 

There was an unexpected outpouring of grief from global netizens when scientists lost track of her GPS signal earlier this year.