About us.

The Dartford Ringing Group was formed in 1968 by Peter Meredith, Trevor Squire, Jim Hook and Bill Spencer. It was then, as the name suggests, based in the Dartford area of north Kent, with the main ringing site being the scrub and settling ponds adjacent to Littlebrook Power Station on the south bank of the Thames, close to where the M25 now crosses the river. Over the years we have carried out our studies in the now vanished reed beds of Thurrock on the north shore of the river and further south into the counties of Kent and Surrey as shown on the map below. Our main sites are now at Sevenoaks in Kent and Crossness in southeast London.

All the ringing data collected by our group contributes to the UK's national ringing scheme. This is organised by the British Trust for Ornithology through their program of Integrated Population Monitoring and Recording (IPMR). The BTO has existed since 1933 as an independent, scientific research trust, investigating the populations, movements and ecology of wild birds in the British Isles.

The importance of bird monitoring had been recognised by the UK government when they announced in 1998 that the 'wild bird indicator' would be one of 13 measures that would be used to monitor the environment. This was launched as 'Indicators of Sustainability', or the 'happiness index' as it was more popularly called.