Queenstown - first banding here for a while

We drove down here on Tuesday for 12 days or so, and have managed to do some banding but there are not a lot of birds about. On Tuesday after our arrival I caught a couple of Chaffinchs that were stuck in the neighbours hen house. Both were already banded the oldest was banded 15 Sept 15 just 3 days after starting banding here. It is now the oldest bird of any species recaptured here.

On Wednesday I went down to Moorhill Rd where there were good numbers of birds feeding with the owners chooks. There had been problems at this site for the first half of this year of a Falcon paying regular visits to collect its daily food supply of either a chicken or a passerine. As a result the chooks were shut up and small birds became very scarce and scared. The Falcon has now stopped its visit and banding can recommence. I managed to catch 13 birds, 6 new Dunnocks and 2 recaps, both banded at this site about a year ago, also caught were 4 new Yellowhammers and 1 recap. The recap was banded here at Littles Rd almost a year ago, not a big movement just a couple of km's but still a good catch.

This morning (Friday 20th) I had a net up here and caught 23 birds of 7 species with 18 new and 5 recaptures.

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 1
Dunnock - 1 (1) the recap was banded in Nov 2015 and is now the oldest for the species.
House Sparrow - 3 (1)
Goldfinch - 1
Silvereye - 9 (3) All the recaps were banded a month or so ago. There continues to be only small numbers of Silvereye about with very few older returns. 
Bellbird - 1
Tui - 2

Both Tui were year old birds

The Bellbird was also a year old