Llangorse Ringing Group's Historic data - a milestone reached

Way back when the Group was formed (August 1978), ringing data was submitted on paper schedules some younger ringers may find this hard to believe! In 1994 we started submitting data using BRING - a BTO developed ringing spreadsheet. A decade later, a dedicated ringing programme was created with IPMR (and we submitted our first file for 2006). Starting in January 2019 we switched to the new web based DemOn, and the BTO transferred earlier "electronic" data (submitted using IMPR, and BRING) to DemOn (though with the latter, some problems have arrised - see below). A few years after we started using BRING, we decided it would be a good idea to also input all our pre-1994 data (16 years worth) in BRING. Despite most members being involved in inputting the data/correcting for typos, the final checking was not completed until early 2015. Since then, Tony has transferred all of this BRING data into IPMR, and after Jerry checked the error file records (to try and resolve any anomalies), a milestone has eventually been reached - this data has now been submitted to the BTO - some 30,600 records.

While Peter was inputting in DemOn, he also checked earlier records, and discovered a significant shortfall in the number of records for all years 1994 - 2005, records that the BTO transferred from BRING submissions to IPMR, which then subsequently became available on DemOn when it was launched (the missing records being more obvious in some years than others). On querying this with the BTO, he found out that during the earlier years, only selected records (where birds had been recovered/controlled), and selected fields were transferred. Then for several years, an increasing number of new birds were also transferred over, and in the final year all data was transferred (the progress of increased data being transferred was probably a reflection of the processing ability of the computers at the time, or the time constraints of BTO staff to oversee the transfer processs).

In addition, at some point in the process all these birds had their site information overwritten (by someone at the BTO) to RB2, and this created another problem. When the BTO set up a site for capturing the CES data, a "CES catchall" site is created, and in our case it had to contain our RB2 site (or these "historic" garden birds with the wrong site information would be excluded from our CES totals). This is something we would need to rectify if we wanted to interrogate our data. If not corrected, it would also mean that any birds ringed in rb2 in the future, on the same day as a CES visit, would be included in the CES totals. The BTO and those involved at our end have agreed that the best solution/compromise to rectify this anomaly, would be for us to re-submit the data on IMPR before it becomes defunct. This would correct the site errors, and also add the missing records and any fields that were excluded. Tony and Jerry are now doing the same error checks for these years, and hope to submit the data soon.