Zoo Banding 13 April

We had a reasonably successful day's banding at the Zoo today. We had good conditions, especially this morning, calm and overcast then a little light misty drizzle early afternoon and later some rain as we packed up the final net. In all we caught 76 birds of 7 species with 61 new and 15 recaptures. A good balance of banders attended with several experienced ones ably to assist and mentor some new folk.

Some of the team (Gen, Annette, Otis & Ros) busy at the banding station.

Species caught - (Recaps in brackets)
Chaffinch - 1 (0)
Greenfinch - 6 (1) The recap was banded in July 11. The overall total was well below the usual for this time of year.
Dunnock - 2 (1)

One of the Dunnocks showed a very prominent growth bar across its tail

House Sparrow - 23 (3) The oldest recap was banded in Feb 09
Silvereye - 28 (9) We had 3 birds caught in a net at the same time that were all banded on the 27 May 2012, 2 with consecutive numbers. One of the other recaps was banded at the Mt Albert site last month.

One of the Silvereyes also had a prominent growth bar.

Grey Warbler - 0 (1) A bird banded almost exactly a year ago on 16 April 12
Tui - 1 (0)

Gen with "her" Tui, amazingly she got it out of the net on her own without  spilling any of her blood.

 Surprisingly we didn't catch any Blackbird but we had a bonus in a keeper reporting the recovery of one found dead recently. It had been banded in Nov 2005 so at 2666 days from banding, although not our oldest Blackbird still a pretty old bird. This highlights one of the benefits of banding at the Zoo with staff reporting recoveries as well as assisting in other ways, their help is much appreciated.