Queenstown - Final round up for 2016 and a start to 2017

I have crunched the numbers of birds banded down here for last year. A total of 1290 new birds of 17 species were banded and 465 recaptures of 14 species were made. The recap tally includes multiple captures of the same bird. This compares with 533 new birds and 194 recaptures made in the last 4 months of 2015. (Banding started in Sept)

Species caught were - (Recaps in brackets)

1. House Sparrow - 422 (170) Also No 1 last year
2. Redpoll - 257 (17)  No 7 last year. Numbers were boosted by a large number of juveniles caught at the stream at the bottom of the property.
3. Silvereye - 227 (55) Down from 2nd
4. Tui - 62 (46) Up from 12th. The big mover and a pleasant surprise.
5. Chaffinch - 61 (29) Down from 3rd
6. Dunnock - 58 (44) 5th last year
7. Blackbird - 57 (47) 4th last year
8. Bellbird - 37 (43) another big mover, 14th last year. Almoat all males.
9. Greenfinch - 29 (0) 11th in 2015, might get a recap one day.
10. Yellowhammer - 28 (6) down from 8th.
11. Song Thrush - 17 (5) A  big drop from 6th.
12. Goldfinch - 16 (2) 10th last year.
13. Starling - 10 (1) 9th last year.
14. Grey Warbler - 3 (0) new for 2016.
15. Californian Quail - 3 (0) new
16. Kingfisher - 2 (0) 13th in 2015. There appears to hve been a big drop in numbers this Spring/Summer with no breeding pairs as against 3 or 4 last year.
17. Fantail - 1 (0) new. Surprised not more are not caught.

I won't be here as much this year so numbers for 2017 might be down a bit.

First session for 2017

I went down to the stream on Monday for a bit of a look and as there were a few birds about put a couple of nets up. Was pleasantly surprised to catch 24 birds. Most were Redpolls with 19, also 2 Greenfinch, 1 Starling, 1 Goldfinch and a House Sparrow recap.