Banding Totals for 20013/14

With it hosing down outside I have a bit of time to crunch the numbers for the last banding year, 1 April 13 to 31 March 14.

Year Banding Totals

07/08 08/09 09/10 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 5yr Av 9yr Av Silvereye 1759 1403 1156 1934 1341 1063 1097 1318 1337 H Sparrow 517 495 474 698 620 905 822 704 545 Greenfinch 518 266 261 710 211 197 313 338 326 Chaffinch 163 109 110 161 195 175 140 156 139 Blackbird 124 185 133 123 174 151 111 138 140 Goldfinch 62 36 61 39 43 140 75 72 53 Starling 166 56 91 76 73 91 59 42 87 Tui 86 73 71 67 57 71 46 62 61 Dunnock 41 46 44 56 37 65 42 49 45 Fantail 58 31 46 78 30 60 37 74 50 Grey Warbler 12 20 21 41 49 39 31 49 27 Yellowhammer 13 14 56 162 20 27 6 54 40 Song Thrush 6 2 7 7 1 5 5 5 5 E Rosella 0 0 1 0 1 2 2 1 1 Kingfisher 3 3 0 1 2 1 2 1 2 Redpoll 4 0 15 42 1 1 1 0 9 Bellbird 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 3532 2740 2547 4195 2855 2993 2790 3063 2866

Recaptures For the year 2790 new birds of 17 species were banded, this is our lowest total since 09/10 and well below the 5 year average but only slightly below the 9 year average.

Birds recaptured during the year

	10/11	11/12	12/13	13/14
Silvereye	1128	571	621	752
House Sparrow	73	82	148	134
Greenfinch	172	93	55	103
Blackbird	81	55	71	70
Starling	15	30	23	25
Grey Warbler	4	13	13	17
Dunnock	21	6	13	13
Chaffinch	25	33	23	9
Tui	10	8	10	5
Fantail	31	10	7	4
Goldfinch	0	4	3	2
Song Thrush	0	0	1	0
	1560	905	988	1134

The number of birds recaptured was higher than the last 2 years but well below 10/11 with the highest number of Greenfinch recaps since then.  

Species caught ranked by the number of new birds banded.

1 Silvereye - 1097 (752) The  No 1 bird every year but numbers down on both the 5 yr & 9 yr average

2 House Sparrow - 822 (134) Usually at No 2 and above both the 5 yr & 9 yr average.

3 Greenfinch - 313 (103) Mostly at No 3 but has occasionally supplanted H Sparrow at No 2

4 Chaffinch - 140 (9) Usually at 4 or 5 and very close to the 5 yr average but slightly below the 9 yr. The number of recaps well below recent years.

5 Blackbird - 111 (70) usually ranges between No 4 & 6. Below both the 5 yr and 9 yr averages, there appears to be a drop in Blackbird numbers about the city in recent years.

6 Goldfinch - 75 (6) numbers up on recent years mostly due to good numbers of Juv's caught at stream sites.

7 Grey Warbler - 59 (17) the big mover with the ranking last year at No11. Great to see this little beauty doing well.

8 Tui - 46 (5) Slightly down on most years mainly due to catching effort rather than lower numbers.

9 Dunnock - 42 (13) About an average number.

10 Starling - 37 (25) Following the trend of recent years of lower numbers.

11 Fantail - 31 (4) Slightly below average but can be hard to catch and even harder to recapture.

12 Yellowhammer - 12 (0) Well below the average but the numbers of this species fluctuates from year to year. 

Small numbers of Song Thrush, Eastern Rosella, Kingfisher, and Bellbird were also caught but no Redpolls. 

Birds caught or sighted after 5 years from banding 

Over 5 yr	11/12	12/13	13/14
Silvereye	16	13	23
Tui	2	6	7
Blackbird	2	6	5
Starling	2	9	4
House Sparrow	1	1	2
Chaffinch	1	2	1
Greenfinch	0	2	0
	24	39	42

Forty two bird were recaptured or sighted by colour bands during the year. This is up on recent years mainly due to an increase in old Silvereyes caught, many during the influx of birds in July. Many of the Tui reported are of colour band sightings, this number is expected to decrease over the next few years as the number of colour banded birds reduces.