Queenstown - not a lot of birds

We came down several days ago and I have had a few banding attemps with vey rmixed results. The daily totals have ranged from 2 to 15.  Birds caught were - (recaps in brackets)

Blackbird - 3 (1) all the new birds were juviniles, probably from the same clutch.
Song Thrush - 1 (0)
Chaffinch - 2 (1)
Dunnock - 1 (1) The recap  was banded 1065 days ago and is now the oldest Dunnock recaptured here.
House Sparrow - 15 (2)
Starling - 1 (0)
Yellowhammer - 0 (1)  At 787 days from banding it is the oldest Yellowhammer recaptured.

The Yellowhammer not realy old  but 2+ years older than when it was banded.

NZ Bird Banding Newsletter.

The 8th edition of the NZ Banding Office newsletter is out. It is well worth a look, if you click on the link below you should be able to accesses it.

In the 8th edition of BirDBanD, banding banter includes:

·      There must be an app for that

·      “bobos blancos” as liaison officers

·      Testing their mettle: Rates of wear in metal bands

·      That’s a wrap: The art (or science) of band making

Halswell Quarry - plenty of birds but few caught.

We had another quiet morning at the Quarry today (Sat 1 Jan) catching only 10 birds. The total was augmented by the banding of 3 Welcome Swallow nestlings.

Greenfinch made up the bulk of the catch with 6 new and 2 recaps. The only others caught were 1 each of Silvereye and House Sparrow. There are plenty of birds about but with the wet spring there is heaps of food about and birds don't have to risk getting near the nets.

The Welcome Swallow were in the same nest as those banded back in September and when extracting them from the nest it was found that one from the previous brood hadn't survived and was now incorporated into the base of the nest.