We had a session at the Zoo today and after a very busy first hour it quietened down considerably. Once we had the first few nets up we were inundated with Silvereyes with them almost queuing up to jump into the nets.
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| A few of the early Silvereye rush. |
The weather at that stage was reasonable, with low sun and only a moderate Northerly wind blowing. As the morning progressed the sun of course got higher and affected some nets and the wind strength increased to near gale by midday.It was late morning before we could get more nets up but because these were in more exposed positions and with the increasing wind they were taken down early afternoon. Due to the wind we had all the nets down a couple of hours earlier than usual. Over 75% of birds were caught in the first 3 nets erected.
There was a very good turn out of participants with a number of experienced banders able to help several newcomers. As well as banders we had Shannon from the Dept of Conservation documenting the session for bander training resource purposes.
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| Katie and her mentor Ross with her first banded bird |
We caught a total of 77 birds of 6 species with 60 new and 17 recaptures. Numbers were up a little on last May when we caught 54. The biggest difference was almost twice as many new Silvereye today.
Species caught were - (Recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 0 (1)
Dunnock - 0 (1)
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| The recap Dunnock, although banded Dec 11 as an Adult, still has brown eyes |
Greenfinch - 5 (2)
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| Kate with one of the Greenfinch she banded |
House Sparrow - 4 (2)
Grey Warbler - 0 (1) it was banded Feb 11 and is probably the 2nd oldest Grey Warbler recaptured at the Zoo
Silvereye - 51 (10) two of the recaps were relatively old birds, 1 banded Jan 06 is the 2nd oldest at the Zoo the other banded May 06 is not far behind. Another bird was banded at Houghton Bay in March 11.
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