Island Bay Sunday 29 April

The session yesterday morning was cancelled because of rain so Annette and I tried again this morning. We managed to catch 61 birds of 5 species with 53 new and 8 recaptures. The catch was all introduced species and was dominated by House Sparrows with 48 new and 6 recaps. All the recaps were recently banded with several banded as unsexed Juvs which we have now been able to sex. There were 2 new Chaffinch with 2 recaps both of which are now into their second year i.e. now aged as 2.



Chaffinch 2 M



 Other species were 1 each of Dunnock, Blackbird and Starling. The Starling must have been a late fledgling as it was still completing both body and wing moult.



Moulting Starling J F



The strong wind affected the numbers caught but even so not a bad catch.

Houghton Bay Wed 25 April

Went to the Houghton Bay stream this afternoon in another attempt to catch Fantails, but only managed to catch 3 which was disappointing. Caught a few other species though; 4 Silvereye, 1 Grey Warbler, 1 Tui and a Chaffinch. It was a change to have a catch dominated by native species. There is a huge drop in numbers from this time last year, in 5 sessions between the end of March and the beginning of May we averaged 87 birds per session, mostly Silvereyes, which are almost absent from stream sites this year.

Zoo Stream Fantails

I have had two attempts to catch Fantails at the Zoo Stream (at the moment more of a trickle) with some success. They come in to bathe in the evening just before dark and seem easier to catch than during the day, but even then they frequently hover in front of or bounce out of the net.

The Zoo Stream site, a net is on the left with another behind the foliage on the right.

 Last Monday 16 April I caught 5 with the bye-catch of a Chaffinch. This evening, 23 April I also caught 5 and 3 Blackbirds and a Chaffinch recap as well.

Pied Fantail

Packing the nets up when it is getting dark is interesting with the Lions roaring.  They sound very close just as though they are on the other side of the bushes!

Zoo Saturday 21 April

We had a very successful day’s banding at the Zoo on Saturday. Conditions were near perfect for banding most of the day, a little too much sun for brief periods but then some cloud would role over. In all we caught 114 birds of 9 species with 92 new birds and 22 recaptures. There was a good turn out of people with a couple of keen youngsters, even so, we were very busy for the first couple of hours and perhaps could have done with another experienced bander. After the initial rush there was still a steady flow of birds and as we were taking nets down every net contained birds.

Hine with Silvereye

 Species caught were – (Recaps in brackets)

Blackbird – 1 (0) a surprisingly low tally.

Dunnock – 1 (0)

Chaffinch – 4 (0)

Greenfinch – 6 (7) One of the recaps was banded in April 08, one in June 09 another was banded at the Zoo in April 11 recaptured at Houghton Bay in Aug 11 and is now back at the Zoo.

House Sparrow – 38 (2) one of the recaps was originally banded at Bridie’s on

Hornsey Rd.



One of the Sparrows had an unusual moult pattern on it's right wing with two very bent feathers



Starling – 1 (0)

Silvereye – 39 (12) 3 of the recaps were banded at the Mt Albert fennel patch last month.

Grey Warbler – 2 (0)

The first Grey Warbler rated on eye colour as a 1

Tui – 0 (1) a colour banded bird caught in the same net in Sept 09. It has been sight recorded a couple of time around the Zoo area and has now lost one of it’s bands.



The Tui, a female and now at least 5 years old



As well as the banding the opportunity was taken to collect blood samples from some birds for avian malaria screening as part of a study being undertaken by DOC.

Blood being collected from a House Sparrow







Mt Albert Sunday 15 April

Annette, Anneke and I had another attempt to catch Silvereyes at the Fennel patch this morning with limited success. Numbers were way down on a couple of weeks ago but we did manage to catch 7 new and 4 recaptures with a bycatch of the usual Dunnock and a Goldfinch. Three of the recaps were recently banded birds with the other banded at Houghton Bay (about 2km away) back in December 11.

Dunnock

Looking back at the records for the last 10 years a sudden drop in Silvereye numbers at this site is usual about mid April, as well we had a Falcon do a swoop over the nets. This bird has apparently been in the area for a while and no doubt makes smaller birds keep their heads down. Also, someone probably City Council water works, people have cut a considerable area of the Fennel.

The Fennel patch showing the cut section

The Groups banding results for 2011/12

I have just finished sorting out the banding returns for the Banding Office for the year ending 31 March. Although down considerably from last year’s record numbers it was still a reasonable year.

Year Banding Totals 05/06 06/07 07/08 08/09 09/10 10/11 11/12 6yr T 6yr Av Silvereye 1190 853 1759 1403 1156 1 1934 1 1341 1 9636 1606 House Sparrow 353 295 517 495 474 2 698 3 620 2 3452 575 Greenfinch 163 280 518 266 261 3 710 2 211 3 2409 402 Chaffinch 99 99 163 109 110 5 161 5 195 4 936 156 Blackbird 108 119 124 185 133 4 123 6 174 5 966 161 Starling 64 80 166 56 91 6 76 8 73 6 606 101 Tui 10 54 86 73 71 7 67 9 57 7 418 70 Grey Warbler 13 17 12 20 21 12 41 13 49 8 173 29 Goldfinch 16 26 62 36 61 8 39 12 43 9 283 47 Dunnock 27 44 41 46 44 11 56 10 37 10 295 49 Fantail 42 57 58 31 46 10 78 7 30 11 342 57 Yellowhammer 23 7 13 14 56 9 162 4 20 12 295 49 Kingfisher 4 3 3 3 0 16 1 15 2 13 16 3 Redpoll 1 5 4 0 15 13 42 11 1 14 68 11 Song Thrush 7 3 6 2 7 14 7 14 1 15 33 6 Eastern Rosella 1 15 0 16 1 16 2 0 2120 1943 3532 2741 2547 4195 2855 19933 3322

The biggest change from last year is a big drop in both Silvereye and Greenfinch numbers partly offset by an increase in House Sparrows.

Species caught for the year in order from highest to lowest were –

No 1 Silvereye – The usual top spot holder although a big drop from 10/11 and well below the 6 year average. With the mild autumn and early winter along with an abundance of berries Silvereyes did not come to gardens and food tables until well into the winter, then after a couple of weeks they disappeared again.  This corresponded with a large build of numbers on the western side of the Houghton Valley where they were feeding on a profusion of Karo flowers and where we caught comparatively high numbers at the Houghton Bay Stream. Also we did not have the big influx of Silvereye that we had the previous year.

No 2 House Sparrow – Reclaiming the second spot back after a couple of years in third. Although numbers dropped off markedly in the autumn there appeared to have been very good breeding in the spring/summer months with the subsequent capture of large numbers of juveniles.

No 3 Greenfinch – Dropped a spot from the last 2 years and a big decrease from last year, not sure of the reason, perhaps a poor breeding season or, did the country birds not come to town?

No 4 Chaffinch – A record year since the banding year was changed 6 years ago with a lot of birds caught at our stream sites.

No 5 Blackbird – A slightly above average number.

No 6 Starling – Below the average for the previous 6 years but close to last year’s number.

No 7 Tui – Slightly down on the average but we haven’t put the effort into catching them that we did a few years ago.

No 8 Grey Warbler – A record number and the highest ranking ever with most caught at stream sites especially at Houghton Bay.

No 9 Goldfinch – About an average year, there were large numbers feeding on Macalister Park with Redpolls last winter but we were unsuccessful in catching many.

No 10 Dunnock – A noticeable reduction in numbers that appeared to be across all sites. Not sure why?

No 11 Fantail – A big reduction in numbers probably due to mortality during last winter’s snow.

No 12 Yellowhammer – another species with a big drop from the last 2 years. There were large numbers feeding on parks last winter but they were more mobile than usual and we were unable to catch many. The one semi successful session was at Newtown Park but it was aborted when the Phoenix footballers came out to practice.

No 13 Kingfisher – very much a by-catch bird but nice when we get one.

No 14 Redpoll – Like Goldfinch large numbers over the winter on Macalister Park but unable to catch them.

No 15 Song Thrush – with only one bird caught very disappointing, not sure why we don’t get more, there are a good number about.

No 16 Eastern Rosella - Although only 1 caught I expect to get more in the future with their spread about the city.

ReCaps	2010/11	2011/12
Silvereye	1128	571
Greenfinch	172	93
House Sparrow	73	82
Blackbird	81	55
Chaffinch	25	33
Starling	15	30
Grey Warbler	4	13
Fantail	31	10
Tui	10	8
Dunnock	21	6
Goldfinch	0	4
Song Thrush	0	0
Yellowhammer	4	0
Kingfisher	0	0
	1564	905

There was a big reduction in the number of birds recaptured especially with Silvereye, Greenfinch, Fantail, Dunnock and Blackbird. The first 4 corresponds with a drop in overall numbers but I am not sure about Blackbird.

Recoveries
	2010/11	2011/12
House Sparrow	11	20
Blackbird	4	6
Tui	6	6
Silvereye	14	5
Greenfinch	8	5
Starling	2	2
Chaffinch	2	1
Goldfinch	2	1
Kingfisher	0	1
Dunnock	1	0
	50	47

Recoveries of dead birds were mostly similar to last year with Silvereyes being noticeably down due to a number recovered during the previous year’s big influx of birds.

Oldest Birds of each Species caught by the Group

Species	Days	Est Age
Silvereye	3817	10yr 9mth
Blackbird	3299	9yr 3mth	Dead
Starling	2958	9yr 0mth
House Sparrow	2773	8yr 0mth	Dead
Tui	2350	5yr 6mth	Sighting
Tui	2271	5yr 4mth
Chaffinch	2084	7yr 0mth
Greenfinch	1792	5yr 8mth
Grey Warbler	1519	4yr 4mth
Goldfinch	1428	4yr 5mth
Dunnock	1413	4yr 0mth
Fantail Pied	1179	3yr 3mth
Yellowhammer	1114	3yr 6mth
Song Thrush	889	3yr 2mth

Numbers in Red are birds recaptured/recovered during the last year. The Days column is the number of days between banding and recapture or recovery. The Est Age column is the estimated minimum age of the bird.

During the year we had 14 birds recaptured or recovered over 5 years from banding – 16 Silvereye, 2 Tui, 2 Starling, 2 Blackbird, 1 House Sparrow and 1 Chaffinch (the first Finch of any species we have recaptured over 5 years)