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I've blogged before about the work being done by the University of Birmingham to learn more about the Blue Tits and Great Tits that live in the woods. And the same team of researchers also appealed for your help with a garden bird survey and we'll have the results of that in the New Year.

Now the team needs your help once again. Every year some two thousand birds in Chaddesley Woods are ringed by the team. These are standard rings that contain lots of information but you have to catch a bird before you can read the ring.

However this year the team have also ringed about three hundred adult Blue and Great Tits with not just the BTO ring but also the brightly coloured rings you can see in the picture. So there are four rings in all which allow the team to identify individual birds from a distance.

So they need your help to spot the birds and see how far they have travelled from the woods.

If you think you see a Blue or Great Tit with coloured rings on a feeder in your garden they'd like to know. Chances are any particular bird will come back to the feeder several times and that will allow you to read the ring combination correctly and send it to the team. In return they'll let you know the history of your particular bird, including if it has mated and how many chicks it has reared.

So here's Simone Webber from the University with advice on how to read the rings;

"The combination should be read from top to bottom right on the bird's right leg, and then from top to bottom on the bird's left leg. The rings should be read as if the bird is standing up, so the top right ring is the uppermost one, nearest the bird's belly, on the right leg. The diagram below demonstrates a schematic view from the front of a Great or Blue Tit, and the colour combination is BTO ring (M), red (R), orange (O), black (N)."

That means the bird in the photo at the top of this blog is Green, Pink, Green, Metal (GKGM). You'd then record the time, date and location you saw this bird and the species and then send the information in to the researchers via email , telephone (0121 414 4090) or post addressed to;

Simone Webber, School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B17 0DE

Obviously those living closest to the woods have the most chance of spotting one of these birds, but if the cold snap returns it will be interesting to see just how far they do move. So if you feed the birds in your garden do keep an eye out for Blue Tits or Great Tits sporting what might at first look appear to be some rather snazzy leg warmers!

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