Tuesday 2 April 2013

Houghton Bay 2 April - Another Grey Day

Although it was grey and cloudy when I was setting the nets up the sun did come out, but the real Grey was a huge number of Grey Warblers caught. In all there were 17, which is an incredible number of these little beauties. In the first hour 13 were caught and the only others birds were 3 Silvereyes and a H Sparrow. This is the most Grey Warblers I have ever caught in a day. I think the previous biggest number was 10.

In all 37 birds of 7 species were caught with 33 new and just 4 recaps.
Species caught were -
Greenfinch - 1 (0)
Goldfinch - 3 (0)
House Sparrow - 2 (0)
Silvereye - 10 (0)
Grey Warbler - 14 (3 ) all the recaps were banded in the last few months. Only 2 birds had the red eye of an adult all the rest were young birds with brownish eyes.
The 2 red eyed birds

Fantail - 2 (1)
The retained brown tipped juvenile coverts indicate this is a 1st year bird
Kingfisher - 1 (0) This is only the 2nd Kingfisher caught at this site in over 5 years. In the last 12 months the only Kingfisher was caught on the last banding session for the year, and in this period 1 has been caught on the first session.
The first Kingfisher for the year, hopefully not the last.

No comments:

Post a Comment