Back from my travels - reporting some recoveries

We have returned back to windy Wellington after our trip around Australia. I gather while we were away the city lived up to its reputation. Hopefully now I am home we will have some calmer weather suitable for mist netting.

Although I had promised that it was not going to be a birding trip I still managed to see some interesting birds, but was disappointed with the number of sea birds seen during our 17 days at sea. The most interesting ones being numerous flocks of white "sea" birds with black wings and tails flying rapidly just above the water. After scouring all the seabird pages of my reference book to no avail I came to the conclusion that they were actually pigeons making the journey from offshore islands to the mainland.

Torres Strait Pigeons skimming the waves

The nearest I came to any banding was to see an Australian Wood Duck sporting a band.

Banded Australian Wood Duck

While I was away we received recovery reports of 4 banded birds that had met their demise.
A silvereye recently banded at the Zoo was killed by a cat in a nearby street.
A starling banded at Bridie's on Hornsey Rd in Nov 2012 was recovered in the Lion enclosure at the Zoo.
A Dunnock banded at the Zoo, also in Nov 2012, was found dead in the Giraffe enclosure.
A colour banded Tui was found dead in Northland (a Wellington suburb), it had been banded at the Karori Cemetery in April 2008.

With favourable weather I hope to get some banding done in the next week or so.