Zoo Saturday 12 April - A quiet day

We had a quiet day at the Zoo on Saturday although against expectations we did get some banding done. The forecast was not good and we did have some rain requiring the furling of nets for a while but for the most part it held off. Fortunately we had the use of  the last of the old feed sheds from the original bird area which is about to be redeveloped, so we remained dry.

The Team, Stanley, Sarah, Julia, Dave, Richard, Annette and Ros

Everybody busy, but keeping dry

 There was a very good group of banders and helpers that had no trouble keeping up with the flow of birds and with the low catch rate we knocked of a couple of hours earlier than usual. We caught a total of 35 birds of 7 species with 29 new and 6 recaptures.

Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 3 (0)
Dunnock - 2 (0)
Chaffinch - 2 (0)
Greenfinch - 0 (1) a bird banded in Oct 2010 and it was very unusual not to catch a lot more.
House Sparrow 19 (4) the oldest recap was banded April 2012
Silvereye - 1 (0) a very low number, on 13 April last year we caught 28 new and 9 recaps.
Tui - 1 (0)

Julia taking the  head+bill measurement of the Tui

And banding it, I think this is Julia's first Tui

Starling - 0 (1) this bird was the highlight of the day, banded Dec 2005 as an adult so is at least 10 years old. It is the oldest Starling recaptured at the Zoo, (we have a recovery that is slightly older). It is also the second oldest Starling we have recaptured at any of our sites. Surprisingly this is the first time it has been caught since it was banded.