Island Bay Monday 13 July

Annette, Ros and I had a relatively quiet session at our Island Bay site this morning. Annette came for the first hour or so to assist with the nets and the first flush of birds (which didn't come), she then went off to do more interesting things like tracking down Robins.

We caught 43 birds of 6 species with 33 new and 10 recaps.
Blackbird - 5 (0)
Dunnock - 2 (1)
Chaffinch - 5 (0)

Several of the Chaffinch could be aged by the colour of their primary coverts (retained or moulted juvenile feathers).
This bird aged as a 1

House Sparrow - 17 (8) a very high rate of recaps with nearly a third of those caught being already banded.  The oldest recap was banded in 2011 and another in 2012.
Silvereye - 1 (1) the recap was banded here at Hornsey Rd a month ago so has moved suburbs.
Tui - 3 (0)

Bellbird Recap

I have received the details of the Bellbird we recaptured at the Karori Cemetery last Saturday. It was banded at the Cemetery by Matu (wearing his Zealandia hat) on 19 Sept 2012. So hadn't moved but still a good bird to have caught.