Houghton Bay Wednesday 4 March

Andrea, George, Mary and I had a busy 3 hours or so at the Houghton Bay stream this morning. We caught 80 birds of 7 species all of which were new. It is a bit surprising and perhaps disappointing that none of the 5000+ birds banded at this site in the last few years were recaptured today. This was at least partly due to the fact the the majority of birds caught were young ones.

We caught 7 Greenfinch, 5 Chaffinch, 1 Dunnock, 2 House Sparrows, 56 Silvereye, 1 Tui and 8 Grey Warbler.

Although the majority of all species were juveniles the Grey Warbler on the right has the reddish eye of an older bird.