Island Bay 7 June - Tui

Monica, Ros, Annette and I had a successful morning's banding at our Island Bay site today. Bird numbers were down considerably from recent sessions but as Monica was over from Sydney it was as much a social and story telling session as it was a bird banding one. So, in regards to this it was a great success as it was interesting to catch up with her Australian activities.

We caught a total of 41 birds of 6 species with 32 new and 9 recaptures. This is a lot lower than recent sessions and was about half of the numbers caught in June last year. The big difference in numbers was due to the almost complete absence of House Sparrows. Ken our host reported that they were there in their  hundreds last week.

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 4 (3) one of the recaps was banded as an adult in Nov 07 and is now at 2042 days our oldest recaptured Blackbird at this site. It was its the first recapture so where has it been for the last 5+ years? Probably in the area but playing hard to catch.
Chaffinch - 9 (2)
Dunnock - 4 (1)

Monica banding her first Dunnock for a while.

Tui - 6 (0) the first 3 birds caught were Tui, with all but the last caught being male.

The 3 "girls" with their 3 "boys"

The last Tui caught, a female with a pinkish neck tuft, looked as if it had  some different food recently.

Two of the male Tui wings showing the notch in 7p, the older bird with the bigger notch is at the bottom

House Sparrow - 8 (3) the oldest recap was banded Dec 11
Yellowhammer - 1 (0) our first Yellowhammer at this site for a couple of years.

We had an interesting discussion on aging and sexing the Yellowhammer

As is usual we enjoyed a scrumptious morning tea, (actually 3 coffees and a  milky drink).

NZ Birds Online

A new web site was launched last weekend at the The Ornithological Society of NZ (OSNZ) AGM in Dunedin and it is a great addition to the New Zealand birding scene. It is a joint venture between OSNZ and Te Papa. Colin who works at Te Papa and is a long term and very active OSNZ member was the main driving force behind the site. He has done a fantastic job and has I believe spent most of his waking hours working on it for months. Well done Colin and your team.

http://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/