My objective is individual recognition in camera-monitoring of nest attendance by Pied Imperial-pigeons. I've tried placing cotton pads with temporary hair colour in the nest. This produced faint marks at best, sometimes no mark. Marks were hard to see, mostly hidden under the sitting bird, quickly lost in rainy weather. I'd really appreciate information on suitable color products. Also keen to get other ideas for mark application without capture. Thanks!
Maybe you can try to use paint for pigeons. This product is waterproof (I use it in small passerines and it works). If you dont want to capture the pigeons maybe you can put a little amount of fresh paint on the eggs and the adult will get dirty it chest when arrives to the nest for incubate (this method has been used in storks).
Perhaps you can use a saturated solution of picrine (picric acid) and ethanol. Soak one or more small sponges and place them inside the nest (I would recommend to put dummy eggs in place of the real ones during the operation). Of course the parent bird has to return to the nest well before the alcohol has evaporated. Golden-yellow picric stains on white feathers are well visible for at least 20 days on waterbirds, much longer on pigeons as I can imagine. Be careful while handling or storing, the product is said to be explosive. I don't know under which conditions it behaves so, because I never got problems personally.
Peter, many thanks for pointing me to that article. Congratulations and thanks to you and your colleagues for the great work with Carnaby's. I'm in awe of your high quality marking! I will be most grateful for detail about the makring materials you used.
Alexandro, thank you for your suggestions. What is the product (brand? type?) that you use for your passerines?
Nicola, thank you for your information about picric acid. I understand you and other people have used it without problems, but the safety data that I just read is scary!
Hey Julia! Great questions! We have used crayons on the beaks of common eiders, to indicate birds we have already tagged within the year to avoid re-capture (or target it, if we need the same bird twice). These sticky crayons are available in many colors and should be available at the next art shop. You need to capture the birds, of course.
Interesting paper by Fox and Young (2012) using "paintball land mines" to mark individual wading birds interacting with strand-feeding dolphins. Might not be exactly what you are looking for but could be of some use?
Thank you Brian. Indeed remote activation would be ideal for my study, but I'd need a very much smaller quantity of paint/dye than those 'landmines' and some control of spray direction if possible. The Fox & Young study is certainly interesting and it inspires more lateral thinking!
Thanks Jón for your suggestion. What type/brand of crayons did you use?
The type is termed "neopastel", should be available at any arts store
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