Houghton Bay Stream - Saturday 25 Jan

A group of us gathered at the Houghton Bay stream this afternoon. Mary, Kate, Ross, Sarah, who is part of the bird team at Te Papa and is an experienced bander joined us for the first time, and Kyle her partner also joined us before and after going away to have a loss at a football match. After a fairly slow start bird numbers increased and we ended up with a respectably tally of 57 birds of 6 species with 50 new and 7 recaps. A feature of the day was the number of children and their parents who joined us from the near-by playground for a close look at some birds.

This young chap was especially enthusiastic, I doubt if the grin will come off his face for a day or 2.

Species caught were -
Chaffinch - 2 (0)
Goldfinch - 2 (0)

Sarah who is Canadian and has done most of her passerine banding there with her first European Goldfinch

Sarah after  prematurely releasing  "her" Goldfinch (it had been banded)

Greenfinch - 11 (1) the recap was banded at the Prince of Wales Park last Feb it is the first bird banded there that has been recaptured away from that site.
House Sparrow - 11 (0)
Silvereye - 22 (5) the oldest recap was banded Nov 2011 another was banded on Mt Albert and another at the Houghton Valley School on June 12.
Fantail - 2 (1)

Sarah was also able to band her first Fantail while Ross (in the background) is still waiting for his first Grey Warbler