Queenstown 17 Sept. A rain affected day.

We are back down here for a week or so, came down on Friday. Spent Saturday doing chores and planned to do some banding today. Unfortunatly just as I was about to put nets up this morning rain set in and it was 11am before I could make a start. Only got about an hour and a half in before it again started to rain.

Managed to catch 23 birds of 8 species so at least there was some variety.  There were 20 new birds and 3 recaptures. Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)

Blackbird - 1 (0)
Dunnock - 0 (1)
Greenfinch - 2 (1) only the 2nd Greenfinch caught down here.
Chaffinch - 3 (0)
House Sparrow - 2 (0)

Male Sparrows have now got the breeding finary with balck bib and bill.

Silvereye - 10 (1) the recap was banded 20 Sept 2015 about a week after I started banding here and at 728 days is now the oldest bird of any species. Another 3 days and it would have made 2 years.
Tui - 1 (0)
Bellbird - 1 (0) the bird was a female so helps to even up the sex ratio a little.

The Bellbird an adult female.

I hope to get a bit more banding in during the week but the forecast is not looking very suitable at this stage - they have been known to be wrong.