Halswell Quarry 5 July - a lot of green and an old recovery

We had a session at the Halswell Quarry this morning and caught 49 birds with 46 new and 3 recaps. All but 7 of the birds were green, 35 new Silvereye with 3 recaps, 3 Bellbird and a Greenfinch. The LBJ's (Little Brown Jobs) were 2 Chaffinch and 5 House Sparrows. The Silvereye recaps were all banded last week

Kenny banding one of the Bellbird

Phil taking the wing length of one of the other Bellbird

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An old recovery from Wellington.

I arrived home from the session to find a recovery report from the Banding Office of a banded Starling picked up on the Parade in Island Bay Wellington. It had been banded at the Freeling St site on  5 Aug 2007 and recovered 3984 days later, which is the first time it has been encountered since being banded. I estimate its age at, at least, 11 years 7 months. This is the second oldest bird we have recorded, the oldest being a Blackbird at the Zoo found dead after 4021 days, which was only 37 days longer. Perhaps there is a lesson here for some of us older folk to be careful on the road, by the injuries to the old bird it was probably involved in a vehicle accident.