Island Bay 11 Jan - Heaps of Sparrows

We had a banding session at our Island Bay site this morning and with a good turnout of banders and heaps of birds we had an enjoyable morning.

Most of the team. Ross (he is not actually asleep) Katherine, Ros (giving hands on training), Roisin, Kate & Otis.

 The catch was mainly House Sparrows and as expected at this time of year mostly juveniles. In all we caught 132 birds of 7 species with 123 new and 9 recaptures.

Species caught - (Recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 11 (0) all juvs
Chaffinch - 5 (0) again all juvs
Dunnock - 2 (0)
Starling - 5 (0)

One of the Starlings had an almost completely naked belly, not sure why?

Silvereye - 0 (1)
Grey Warbler - 1 (0)
House Sparrows - 99 (8) another 5min and we would have made the ton. The oldest recap was banded Nov 2011.

One of the Sparrows had an overshot upper mandible - Photo courtesy Ross 

Although House Sparrows aren't perhaps as exciting as some other species they are a great species to gain banding experience. We had several relatively new people so they were able to gain very useful hands on training.

 

Some of the team busy extracting birds.
As is usual we enjoyed great hospitality from our hosts, Marion and Ken.

Part of the morning tea after seven hungry banders had started to slow down.