To become a ringing Trainee, you need to have found a Trainer who has agreed to train you. The Find-a-Trainer map (inside your MyBTO account) shows the location of all the Trainers who are currently taking on new trainees. 

To access the Find-a-Trainer map, you must have a MyBTO account. 

• If you already have a MyBTO account, log in.
• If you don't, you'll need to create a MyBTO account. (This is free and doesn't mean you will become a member of BTO, but you can join BTO as a member later if you want to.)

When you are logged in, you will see your account information on the left-hand side. On the right-hand side you will see ‘My Current Projects’ which shows you the surveys you are signed up for (if any). 

Further down the page you will see a section called ‘Sign up for Projects’. 

Find the Bird Ringing Scheme and click ‘Register’. You will then need to read and agree to the survey Terms and Conditions.

After you have agreed to the Terms and Conditions—and before you can contact a Trainer—you'll need to answer a few questions (listed below) about your interest in ringing and becoming a Trainee. Your answers will be sent to the Trainer(s) you contact. You can choose to answer these questions straight away or return to the MyBTO home page. There is no requirement or urgency to answer them straight away, please take all the time you need.

If you click ‘Return to My BTO’, you will be taken back to the My BTO home page, where you will see the Bird Ringing Scheme in the ‘My Pending Projects’ section. When you are ready to answer the questions, click on ‘Continue membership’.

If you click on ‘Go to questions’ you will be shown additional information and conditions relating to participating in the Bird Ringing Scheme. If you are happy to continue, please select ‘Yes’ in the dropdown menu under ‘Additional terms agreed’. After you confirm that you are over the age of 18, you will be able to answer these questions:

• Why do you want to ring birds?
• Are there any species group you are particularly interested in learning to ring?
• Do you have any experience of ringing or of handling birds?
• How would you rate your bird identification skills?
• What transport options do you have access to?
• How often do you think you would be able to attend ringing sessions?
• How would you rate your health and mobility?
• Are you likely to be based in your current area of residence for some time?

If you are under 18, please contact us at [email protected] because we will need to direct you to a Trainer who has been approved to train people under the age of 18.

After you have completed the questions, click ‘Submit’. You will then be taken to the Find-a-Trainer map, where you can find a Trainer in your area. If you can see a red pin, this indicates your current location, based on information from your web browser. Zoom in to your local area and click on the blue pins to see the name of the Trainer each pin relates to and what training they can provide (some will only be able to train for specific species groups e.g. Owls and Raptors).

When you have located a suitable Trainer, click the ‘Contact’ button. You will be taken to a page containing an email to the Trainer you have selected. The answers you provided to the questions are pre-populated and you can edit the start of the email to include additional information if you wish to. 

• Please note, to give them time to respond to you, you can only contact one Trainer every two weeks.

If you don’t want to contact a Trainer immediately, you can find the map again on the My BTO home page; the link is located at the bottom of the menu on the left hand side of the page.