Zoo Saturday 9 August - a better day.

Today was a more successful day at the Zoo than recent sessions have been. Despite a very cold start the weather improved and was good for mist netting for most of the day although surprisingly in the afternoon there was bright sun on several nets reducing the catch. There was a good group of banders including Ros, Sarah V H, Aditi (usually referred to as De), Roisin and Helen,

Sarah V H and De extracting birds, they both work in the "Nest" at the Zoo

 We were later joined for a couple of hours by Sarah J, Kyle and little Finn.

Finn was a bit sleepy  and not very interested in proceedings.

We caught a total of 69 birds of 10 species with 47 new and 22 recaptures. Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 1 (0)
Song Thrush - 1 (0)
Dunnock - 1 (2) the oldest recap was banded Dec 2011.
Chaffinch - 1 (0)
Greenfinch - 14 (3) the most we have caught for some time. One of the recaps was banded at Hornsey Rd.

Finn was not very interested in Mum's Greenfinch

House Sparrow - 4 (3)
Starling - 3 (0)
Kingfisher - 1 (0) the first one caught at the Zoo since June 2010.

The Kingfisher was aged as a 1

Silvereye - 18 (14) 2 of the recaps were banded in 201, 1 was subsequently caught at Houghton Bay and is now back at the Zoo. Another was banded on Mt Albert.
Tui - 3 (0)

Finn wasn't even interested in Dad's first Tui

Helen with her first Tui, a big male.