Houghton Bay Stream 18 Sept

We had a session at the Houghton Bay Stream today with Ros assisting this morning in an effort to check for Silvereye moult. This afternoon David, who is a school science teacher currently doing a fellowship at the Wellington Zoo came along to get some hands on experience with birds.It was a reasonably successful day with a  total of 68 birds of 7 species caught, 58 new and 10 recaptures.
Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 5 (1)
Chaffinch - 2 (1) the recap was banded at the Zoo stream in Jan 2012 as an unsexed Juv. It is now a very handsome male.
Greenfinch - 2 (1) the recap was banded here at Hornsey Rd a month ago.
Dunnock - 1 (0)
House Sparrow - 9 (1)

David banding his first Sparrow

Silvereye - 38 (6) the oldest recap was banded Nov 2010, another was banded at the Zoo July 2013 and 3 were banded at Hornsey Rd. Of the 44 Silvereyes caught 11 (25%) were found to be in moult.

Ros doing a moult card for one of the Silvereyes

Tui - 1 (0)