Queenstown - a slow start

We drove down from Christchurch last Thursday and we will be down here for about a week. Both Ruth and I have had a lurgy for the last week or so, thought we would shake it off pretty quickly but unfortunately its taking a bit longer than anticipated.

On Friday morning I went to the neighbours hoping to catch some Bellbirds etc that feed on a couple of patches of Gravillia. It was a bit of a disastrous morning as I had major problems getting the nets up and then the wind increased and it started to rain, so packed up and came back and crawled back to bed. Total birds caught Zero.

On Saturday morning it wasn't much better, did get a double rigged net up next to the other neighbours hen house. Then a rope broke and the nets ended up full of rubish. Did catch a few birds, ending up with a grand total of 7.

This morning put up the douple rigged net up at a differant site and had no major dramas. Caught a steady flow of birds for a couple of hours then numbers dropped off.

Over the period caught a total of 22 birds of 6 species with 10 new and 12 recaptures. (Recaps in brackets)

Dunnock - 1 (3) All caught on Saturday with one of the recaps being the 2nd one banded here, it was banded on the first day of banding at this site 12 Sept 15 and for a day was the oldest bird recaptured here
Blackbird - 0 (1) another bird banded in the first few days, at 368 days the oldest Blackbird
Chaffinch - 1 (2) one of the recaps was banded on the same day as the Blackbird and is now the oldest Chaffinch caught.

The old Chaffinch a very splended male.

House Sparrow - 3 (0)
Silvereye - 3 (6) amongst the recaps was the first Silvereye banded and it being caught a day later took over the record by a day from the Dunnock caught yesterday
Bellbird - 1 (1)

The new Bellbird, anther male was aged as a first year bird by eye colour not having yet developed the bright red eye of an adult