Halswell but not at the Quarry - Thu 27 June

We had a session this morning in Jan's Garden on Kennedys Bush Rd. Although not actually in the Halswell Quarry which is our usual site it borders on the upper rim of the Quarry. We had a very busy morning catching 77 birds which is a record number for a  morning in Christchurch.

All were new and with only 4 species there wasn't much variety. The bulk of the catch was made up with 61 Silvereyes, which is also a record catch. The others were 12 House Sparrows, 3 Blackbirds and a Dunnock. There was actually a good range of other species but with Silvereyes being constantly extracted they stayed away from the nets. I had also hoped to get some recaps from the Quarry as Jan has seen a number of banded birds at her feeders but it wasn't to be.

Today's team, Eleanor, Andrew ( in the assistant Directors chair) Jan in the directors chair, Kenny and our scribe Sandra.

Halswell Quarry 20 June - a better catch.

We had a session at the Halswell Quarry this morning our first banding for a while with last weeks planned session cancelled for a variety of reasons. We had a much better catch than recent sessions with a total of 38 birds of 7 species caught. There were 36 new and a couple of recaps. I had hoped for a few more recaps, especially as the first bird caught was one, but it wasn't to be.

We were joined today by Colin who is a L3 bander and Steve one of his trainees. Colin is starting to do some banding and training at his place a few Ks away and hopefully we will get to swap birds.

The team for the day. Phil, Steve, Colin, Kenny, Andrew and seated Jan who admirably performed the duties of scribe in the absence of Sandra our usual one.

Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 1
Dunnock - 3

One of the Dunnocks had what appeared to be an old break in its right leg that had healed leaving a large swelling.

House Sparrow - 16 (1)
Greenfinch - 9 (1)
Silvereye - 4
Bellbird - 2

Andrew with the first Bellbird

Steve extracted and banded the second Bellbird, which was also the last bird of the day.