Mt Albert Wednesday 26 Feb - Heaps of Silvereyes

I had a very successful morning at the Mt Albert fennel patch, caught 64 birds all except 2 were Silvereyes. The only bycatch were a Dunnock and a Grey Warbler. Only 2 of the Silvereye were already banded with 1 from the Zoo banded Oct 2011, and the other banded a week or so ago when I had a net up while cutting net lanes. The morning started off  relatively quiet and then a 9 m net caught a flock of over 30 birds. This is the biggest mornings's total at this site

Part of the "big catch" in the 9 m net

Almost all the birds were aged as 1st year with only 2 positively aged as older. The Zoo banded recap and the Grey Warbler which had the red eyes of an adult.

Several Silvereye had growth bars across their tail making aging as 1st year easy

This bird had a rather nasty looking growth under its bill.

When the sun rose above the ridge the noise from the cicadas was deafening especially when one used my shoulder to give out his raspy song. Fortunately I had the nets down before they started to fly very much as they are a devil to get out of nets, having to be dismembered piece by piece.

Cicada using a net pole as a singing post

Fortunately this was the only one to fly into any net -  the last net as I was taking it down.
Sorry the photo is out of focus but you can get the idea.