Island Bay 23 Feb - Sparrows & more Sparrows

Bernard and I had a very busy morning at Island Bay this morning catching a total of 147 birds. We ran out of BP bands and had to let several Sparrows go otherwise we would have easily got to 150. Although we caught 7 species by far the majority were House Sparrows and nearly all birds caught were juveniles.
Species caught - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 6 (1) all juveniles

The early fledged Blackbirds are moulting their body feathers and look a bit unusual

Chaffinch - 2 (0)
Dunnock - 4 (1) all juveniles
Silvereye - 1 (0)
Starling - 1 (0)
Tui - 1 (0) had several others bounce
House Sparrow - 123 (7) Sparrows have had a long and very successful breeding season and are still   producing young as they have for the last 5-6 months.

Newly fledged sparrow

Juvenile male Sparrow starting to show some colour

Another young male with a bit more colour