A bit of Banding Here and There

Hornsey Rd

I set the funnel traps here this morning (Tue 20 Aug) and caught very few birds. Birds caught were 2 new House Sparrows, 2 new and 3 recap Greenfinch and 2 recap Blackbirds. One of the Greenfinch recaps was banded at the Zoo in Aug 2012. There appears to have been a drop off in Greenfinch numbers although I did not have the traps set for long, and there was a cat about which probably made the birds wary.

Houghton Bay

This afternoon I put nets up at the Houghton Bay stream. With the recent rain I did not expect to catch much and that was the case. At least with 6 species I had some variety, in fact, the first 6 birds caught were all different species. Ended up after about an hour and a half with a tally of 17; 14 new and 3 recaps.

Species caught were -

Blackbird - 1 (0)

Chaffinch - 1 (0)

Greenfinch - 2 (0)

Silvereye - 9 (2) one of the recaps was banded at the Zoo 3 weeks ago and 1 of the new birds was undergoing primary wing feather moult.

Fantail - 1 (0)

Tui - 0 (1) a bird banded as a newly fledged Juv in Jan 2012.

Te Papa Car Park Roost 

In the last week I had 2 attempts to catch birds going to roost near Te Papa with very limited success. Plenty of birds coming in but with the trees having increased in height they were mostly flying too high. In the 2 attempts caught 21 birds, all new; 14 Sparrows, 5 Greenfinch, 1 Yellowhammer and a Tui.