Island Bay 18 Sept - another old bird

I had a good morning’s banding at Island Bay this morning with a steady flow of birds and pretty good conditions. It was a little windy early on and then a bit too sunny later. Numbers were not spectacular but fairly typical for this time of year, with a total of 31 birds of 6 species including 24 new and 7 recaptures.

Species caught were – (recaps in brackets)

Chaffinch – 3 (0)

Greenfinch – 3 (0)

Blackbird – 3 (3) D-193264 a female which was banded 26/5/08 was for a time our oldest Blackbird recap and then D-190454 a male was caught and she was relegated to second oldest (but still oldest female). He was banded 4/11/07 and is now the oldest bird of any species banded and recaptured at this site; neither bird had been recaptured before.

The old bird about to be released - until next time

Another Blackbird was recaptured twice about three and half hours apart in that time it had put on about 6 gr in weight.

First year Blackbird about to be released for the second time.

Starling – 1 (0)

House Sparrow – 11 (4)

Tui – 3 (0) the Brown/fawn coloured Tui that has been in the area for some time was seen several times, mostly while being chased by a large normal coloured male. Managed to catch the chasing bird but unfortunately not the chased!