Migration research is constantly changing, and new methods are always emerging. Historically, information about the movements of individual birds was first acquired through ringing studies. Bird ringing (also known as bird banding) consists of catching birds and attaching a small individually numbered metal or plastic ring to their legs or wings. Ring-recovery data are obtained when ringed birds are resighted, recaptured, hunted, or found dead. In Europe, large-scale ringing projects have been conducted, mostly between the 1950s and 1980s, and they represent a wealth of information that has not yet been fully exploited.