Tuesday 9 January 2018

Queenstown - A couple of quiet sessions

I have had a couple of sessions since the last post. Yesterday afternoon I went down to the stream and this morning I put the same nets up as a few days ago.

Stream 8 Jan PM

With a warm dry day I had expected a reasonable catch however, esp. for the first couple of hours, it was very quiet. Ended up with 17 birds, all new except 1. With 8 species at least there was a bit of variety.
One each of Blackbird, Dunnock, Chaffinch and Yellowhammer, 5 Redpoll, 2 Goldfinch, 4 Greenfinch, 1 new and 1 recap Silvereye. This was the smallest catch of Redpoll at this site for the last few summers. This time last year it was usually between 25 & 30.
The Blackbird aged as a 2 was well into its first full moult.

One of the Greenfinch was the first Juvenile caught this Spring/Summer

The Yellowhammer had moulted all the feathers on the top of its head and was regrowing them all at once.

9 Jan AM

It was probably a mistake to use the same net sites as the other day as I usually find that this reduces the catch and in this case, except for juvenile House Sparrows this proved correct.
Caught 20 birds but only 3 species. Tui 1 new and 1 recap, Bellbird 2 new including the first adult female for some time. And 13 new and 2 recap House Sparrows, all were Juveniles. The session was also shorter than usual due to getting a lunch invitation.
The first adult female Bellbird for a while.

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