Birds Korea - AWSG Flagging protocol

Flagging Protocol Information provided by the
East Asian-Australasian Flyway partnership

Flagged Great Knot: a yellow flag on the upper leg means that this bird was flagged in northwest Australia.
Photo © Yeh Chih wei

The programme of flagging waders has revolutionised wader migration studies, and probably more waders have been flagged in recent years than have ever been flagged before - and, if the destruction of wetlands continues, probably ever will be.

The programme started in Australia in 1990, and a flagging protocol has been developed for the East-Asian Australasian Flyway, which enables any country, or in some cases regions within a country, to join the scheme.

At present Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, China (Hong Kong) and Taiwan are colour flagging birds.
The Australasian Wader Studies Group has now assumed responsibility for processing all leg flag markings in Australia under agreement with, and with limited financial support from, Environment Australia which is the Environment Portfolio of the Commonwealth Government of Australia.

The "flag" is a small coloured plastic band with a tab on the end. Flags can be placed either on the upper part of the leg (the tibia), the lower (the tarsus), or both upper and lower.

Grey-tailed Tattler flagged in Victoria (AUS), seen in Taiwan, © Chung-Yu Chiang

Easily seen by an observer, it means that, unlike with banding/ringing, the bird does not have to be re-caught to find out in which region it has been banded.

For birds from Victoria, S.E. Australia, the reporting rate from flagged birds is 17 times that of banded bands, and for N.W. Australia 5 times.

Also flagged birds can be watched for anywhere, as opposed to banded birds for which most recoveries only come from a few areas where there is much hunting or banding activity. For some species and localities in the Flyway where there have been many flag sightings it is now becoming possible to find out the timings of migrations of birds from different origins (i.e. N.W. and S.E. Australia: Alaska and Siberia) through the same area, and even to make estimates of the proportions of the total populations passing through.

Terek Sandpiper flagged in Taiwan, seen in
Japan. Photo © Sayaka Sakomoto

The table below lists the the colours of the flags being placed on waterbirds by countries following the AWSG protocol: in the table, upper/lower refers to the part of the leg that the flag is placed on.

All countries starting flagging are urged to follow the protocol.

The colour scheme has been carefully worked out to ensure that all researchers throughout the Flyway benefit from the program, and do not destroy other people's research, (and their own), by not following the protocol.

(More information on Colour Flagging can be found on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway partnership website.)


White	Black	Blue	Green	Orange	Yellow
*nothing*	*nothing*	*nothing*	*nothing*	*nothing*	*nothing*
North Island	Southern India	Northern Japan Shunkunitai, Eastern Hokkaido	QLD	Victoria	NWA
may be engraved	(on left leg)	(on left leg)	may be engraved	may be engraved	may be engraved or carrying four other color bands
New Zealand	India	Japan	Australia	Australia	Australia

White	Black	Blue	Green	Orange	Yellow
White	White	White	White	White	White
Northern India	Chongming Island	Tokio Bay & Miyagi		East. Yellow Sea	Sakhalin Island
	(both flags on right tibia) may be engraved	Tibia & Tarsus: Obitsu (typical flag); Yatsu Tidal Flat (angled flag) Both Tarsus: Miyagi pref. (on left legs) may be engraved		discontinued	may use angled flags in future
India	China	Japan	Singapore	South Korea	Russia

White	Black	Blue	Green	Orange	Yellow
Black	Black	Black	Black	Black	Black
Chongming Island		Hainan-Guangxi		Sumatra	Kamchatka
discontinued					may use angled flags in future
China	Myanmar	China	Cambodia	Indonesia	Russia

White	Black	Blue	Green	Orange	Yellow
Blue	Blue	Blue	Blue	Blue	Blue
Taiwan		Northern Japan Lake Komuke, Northern Hokkaido	Jiangsu	Tasmania	Northern Territory
may be engraved				may be engraved
China	Philippines	Japan	China	Australia	Australia

White	Black	Blue	Green	Orange	Yellow
Green	Green	Green	Green	Green	Green
South Island	Inner Gulf of Thailand			NSW
	Angled (left leg): Thailand Peninsular (Ko Libong) Typical (right leg): Gulf of Thailand may be engraved			may be engraved
New Zealand	Thailand	Mongolia	Sri Lanka	Australia	Vietnam

White	Black	Blue	Green	Orange	Yellow
Orange	Orange	Orange	Orange	Orange	Orange
East. Yellow Sea	Java & Bali	Southern Japan	Yalujiang	West Papua	SW West. Aus.
		Tibia & Tarsus: Kyushu Both Tarsus: Okinawa may be engraved	may be engraved or carrying other color bands		may be engraved
South Korea	Indonesia	Japan	China	Indonesia	Australia

White	Black	Blue	Green	Orange	Yellow
Yellow	Yellow	Yellow	Yellow	Yellow	Yellow
Hong Kong		Bohai Bay	Gulf of Carp.	SA
	(proposed)	typical: Tangshan angled: Cangzhou	may be engraved	may be engraved
China	Malaysia	China	Australia	Australia	Bangladesh

Other flags used on the flyway


Pale Green	Pale Green	Pale Blue	Pale Blue	Pale Blue (ring)	Green (ring)
*nothing*	White	*nothing*	White	Green	Green
Southern Chukotka	Southern Chukotka	Northern Chukotka	Wrangel Island	Northern Alaska Ikpikpuk & Prudhoe Bay	Northern Alaska Canning River
	white may be engraved			markings can be placed on different parts of legs	markings can be placed on different parts of legs
Russia	Russia	Russia	Russia	USA	USA

Orange (ring)	Red (ring)	Yellow (ring)	Blue (ring)	Black	Red
Green	Green	Green	Green	*nothing*	*nothing*
North western Alaska	Northern Alaska Barrow	Northern Alaska Barrow	Western Alaska Nome		South Island
		may be engraved; markings can be placed on different parts of legs	markings can be placed on different parts of legs	Bar-tailed Godwits engraved	NOT engraved, may carrying four other color bands
USA	USA	USA	USA	New Zealand, Australia & USA	New Zealand

Yellow	White
*nothing*	*nothing*

New Zealand Pied Oystercatchers haematopus finschi engraved	Variable Oystercatchers Haematopus unicolor engraved
New Zealand	New Zealand
Updated: 24 Jun 2013