Wednesday 1 April 2015

The 20014-15 year - A bit below average

I have just collated our banding stats for the banding year 2014/15 which closed on 31 March.
It was a reasonable year with a total of 3079 new birds banded and 944 recaptures. Both these figures are slightly below both the 5 and 10 year averages. For the first time Silvereye have been knocked off the top perch replaced by House Sparrow which is usually No 2 candidate.

Year Banding Totals
10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 5yr Av 10yr Av
H Sparrow 698 3 620 2 905 2 822 2 1056 1 820 624
Silvereye 1934 1 1341 1 1063 1 1097 1 1001 2 1287 1280
Goldfinch 39 12 43 9 140 6 75 6 206 3 101 70
Greenfinch 710 2 211 3 197 3 313 3 205 4 327 312
Blackbird 123 6 174 5 151 5 111 5 178 5 147 141
Chaffinch 161 5 195 4 175 4 140 4 152 6 165 140
Tui 67 9 57 7 71 8 46 8 71 7 62 61
Dunnock 56 10 37 10 65 9 42 9 55 8 51 46
Starling 76 8 73 6 91 7 59 7 47 9 47 32
Fantail 78 7 30 11 60 10 37 10 47 10 65 78
Grey Warbler 41 13 49 8 39 11 31 11 41 11 48 47
Song Thrush 7 14 1 15 5 13 5 13 12 12 6 6
E Rosella 0 16 1 16 2 14 2 14 3 13 2 1
Yellowhammer 162 4 20 12 27 12 6 12 2 14 43 33
Kingfisher 1 15 2 13 1 15 2 15 1 15 1 2
Magpie 0 18 0 18 0 18 0 18 1 16 0
Cal Quail 1 17 0













4195 2855 2993 2789 3079 3182 3199
Significant movements in the table above are shown - up in Red and down in Blue. The figures beside the total for each species indicates their ranking for the year.

Species caught in order of the number of new birds were ( recap totals in brackets)
No 1 House Sparrow - 1056 (159) The usual No 2 species.  They have had a huge breeding season with a large number of juveniles caught Nov to Feb.
No 2 Silvereye - 1001 (527) The first time Silvereye hasn't been No 1 and the lowest total in 10 years. The mild winter meant that very few were caught at our usual winter sites.
No 3 Goldfinch - 206 (17) The big mover for the year, up from 6 last year and well above average with more than double both the 5 and 10 year. Large numbers of juveniles were caught over the summer at our stream sites.
No 4 Greenfinch - 205 (103) Well down on both the 5 and 10 year average. Usually ranked at No 3
No 5 Blackbird - 178 (94) Slightly up on average.
No 7 Chaffinch - 152 (17) Usually ranked at 4 although numbers were about average.
No 8 Tui - 71 (10) Our equal highest total and continues the trend of rising numbers.
No 9 Dunnock - 55 (17) About average.
No 10= Starling - 47 (33) Down on the last couple of years but still about average.
No 10= Fantail - 47 (5) Down on recent years, possibly affected by the dry year.
No 12 Grey Warbler - 41 (6) About average
No 13 Song Thrush - 12 (1) Our highest total ever.
No 14 Eastern Rosella - 3 (0) A species just starting to show on the radar.
No 15 Yellowhammer - 2 (1) This species is very variable and didn't come to town this year.
We also caught 1 each of Kingfisher, Magpie and a Californian Quail. No Redpolls were caught during the year.

Over 5 yr 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15
Silvereye 21 16 13 23 21
Tui 5 2 6 7 15
Blackbird 8 2 6 5 8
Starling 4 2 9 4 5
House Sparrow 1 1 1 2 1
Chaffinch 0 1 2 1 1
Greenfinch 0 0 2 0 1
Yellowhammer 0 0 0 0 1
39 24 39 42 53

There was a good increase in the number of birds caught over 5 years from banding including our first Yellowhammer.












Recoveries 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15
Blackbird 4 6 9 9 4
Chaffinch 2 1 1 4 3
Dunnock 2 0 1 1 1
Fantail 1 0 0 1 0
Goldfinch 2 1 0 1 0
Greenfinch 9 5 1 3 1
Grey Warbler 0 0 1 2 0
House Sparrow 11 20 7 8 9
Silvereye 14 5 11 11 5
Song Thrush 0 0 0 0 0
Starling 2 2 6 2 1
Tui 6 6 2 5 4
53 47 39 47 28

The number of birds recovered dead was down on the last few years, probably due to the mild winter.

Oldest Birds
  Band No Species Days Est Age
D 71970 Blackbird 4021 12 yr 0 mth
A 135040 Silvereye 3817 10 yr 9 mth
D 181101 Tui 3797 10 yr 8 mth
D 99970 Starling 3270 10 yr 0 mth
A 10435 Chaffinch 3244 9 yr 11 mth
B 96619 House Sparrow 2773 8 yr 0 mth
A 168383 Greenfinch 1956 5 yr 3 mth
A 104139 Yellowhammer 1949 6 yr 0 mth
A 167973 Dunnock 1856 4 yr 0 mth
AA 4172 Grey Warbler 1519 4 yr 4 mth
A 153123 Goldfinch 1428 4 yr 5 mth
AX 1919 Fantail Pied 1176 3 yr 3 mth
C 51678 Song Thrush 889 3 yr 2 mth



The oldest bird of each species banded by the Group and recaptured or recovered, figures in Red are new records set this year. Days column shows the number of days from banding to recapture and Est Age is an estimate of the minimum age of the bird.



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