This document describes a standard way of recording colour marks (combinations of colour rings, colour rings with enscriptions, multi-coloured rings, leg flags, neck collars, wing tags, nasal tags and saddles...).
Specification for Coding Colour Marks © 2000-2001 by Mark G Cubitt is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Legs
Single colour rings
Which leg (L = gauche/left, R = droit/right)
Position on the leg either above or below the tarsal joint (B = tarsus/below, A = tibia/above)
LB = left tarsus
LA = left tibia
RB = right tarsus
RA = right tibia
Codes for each leg are separated by a semicolon
If there are multiple rings at a leg position then in order of height from the top down the colours/codes are separated by commas
If there is an inscription then following the colour ring code another colour code gives the colour of the inscription followed by the code enclosed within parentheses (bars around the ring are shown by the "/" character).
Examples:
LAM;RBWN(509X) for a metal ring on the left leg above the tarsal joint and a red colour ring on the right tarsus which is Red with Blue writing with code "509X".
LBR,O,N,L;RBR,M for Red colour ring over, Orange, over Black over Light green on left tarsus and Red over Metal on right tarsus
Two-colour rings
As for single colour rings except the colour of a ring rather than a single letter, there is a letter for each colour (top colour first) followed by either a 2 or a 3. 2 = two colour multi-striped rings or 3 = ring with one band of each colour
Example:
LBOB2 for a multi-striped ring of orange and blue stripes on the left tarsus
Leg flags
As for single colour rings except add an 'F' after the ring colour
Example:
LBRF for a Red leg flag on the left tarsus
Tall rings
Tall rings can be made twice the height of a normal ring. Add T after the ring colour
Example:
RBOT for a tall Orange ring on the right tarsus
Wasp rings
Add a # after the ring colour and then after the marking colour within parentheses coded values for the width of the bands :
1 = narrow, 2 = wide, 0 = no band (the character before the parentheses indicates the colour of the bands).Tall rings can be made twice the height of a normal ring. Add T after the ring colour
Examples:
RBY#N(111) for a wasp ring with three narrow black bars on a yellow ring on right tarsus
LBY#N(102) for a wasp ring with a narrow, a missing and a broad black bar on yellow ring
Neck
Neck collars
The mark position for neck collars is NC. Color coding as for rings.
Examples:
NCWN(GDT) for a collar with black 'GDT' code on White collar
Wing
Wing tags
RW = right wing tag
LW = left wing tag
Example:
RWO,B;LWN,W = right tag with orange at the front and blue at the back, left tag black and white.
Bill
Nasal saddle
NS is position code
Example :
NSRB(QQ) = red saddle with blue "QQ" code
Shaped tags
[Q] = square [R] = rectangle [T] = triangle [C] = circle
[H] = hexagon [O] = octagon [S] = star
Example:
NSR[Q],G[C] = red square tag in the right and green circular tag on the left
Colour mark observations can be difficult and some details cannot always be seen. An incomplete sight record may still be of value.
In this case a question mark can be used to indicate some uncertainty in colour or even position :
?B = tarsus (side not noted), ?A = tibia (side not noted)
LBO?(AHT) = colour of the enscription not discerned