Wellington Zoo Saturday 13 Sept - A steady day

After a dire forecast we had surprisingly good conditions for our Zoo session on Saturday. It was mostly overcast with an occasional hint of rain but at times a bit much wind. There was a good turn out of people and it was great to have a number of enthusiastic younger folk.
Annette and Nikki took the opportunity to practice putting on and taking off radio transmitters in preparation for a planned study with North Island Robins.

Annette & Nikki putting a transmitter on a Greenfinch

After a rather slow start bird numbers increased and we ended up with 50, 41 new birds and 9 recaptures. There were 11 species caught so there was a bit of variety but many species were only represented by single birds. Surprisingly no Silvereyes were caught.

Species caught were - (Recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 1 (0) we also had a recovery reported by a Zoo Keeper of a dead Blackbird, it was banded in April 2012.
Song Thrush - 0 (1) our first recap for a couple of years and only the second in the last 5.
Dunnock - 2 (2) one of the recaps was banded June 2010 and is at 1526 days not only the oldest Dunnock we have recaptured at the Zoo but the oldest at any of our sites.

The old Dunnock

Chaffinch - 1 (0)
Goldfinch - 1 (0)
Greenfinch - 26 (5)

A photo of Ross taking a photo of Kate with a Greenfinch

House Sparrow - 5 (1)
Starling - 1 (0)
Fantail - 1 (0)
Tui - 2 (0)
Magpie - 1 (0) the first one caught at the Zoo since 2004.

The first magpie caught at the Zoo for 10 years

There is equipment on site ready to commence work on Monday on an exciting new development at the Zoo. This will impact on several of our net sites so banding sessions for the next year or so are likely to follow a slightly different format.

Machinery, big and small ready to start work Monday