Queenstown - the last couple of days

Yesterday I had nets up for most of the day. There was a steady flow of birds but not overly busy. Caught 40 birds of 9 species with 29 new and 11 recaps. I have also done some banding today, mainly to check out possible new net sites. Had only limited success but as the saying goes heaps of potential. Also raided the neighbours chook house again catching 4 birds; 1 House Sparrow and 3 Chaffinch. All were banded and incuded the 2 Chaffinch from a few days ago.

Combined totals for the couple of days were -
Blackbird - 3 (2) incuded in the recaps was the oldest Blackbird recaptured here.
Dunnock - 7 (1)
House Sparrow - 6 (2)
Chaffinch - 4 (4) the old bird caught in the hen house was again caught so is still the oldest bird recaptured of any species.

One of the Chaffinch from the Hen House has a badly damaged bill. Have caught it several time and it is of average weight.

Goldfinch - 1 (0)
Yellowhammer - 1 (0)

The Yellowhammer was a colourful male.

Silvereye - 15 (7) most of the recaps were banded recently but there was an older one from 2016
Bellbird - 1 (0)
Tui - 1 (1) the new bird was a young female as were the two the other day. But the recap was an older male.

The wing of the female Tui showing a vey small wing notch

The wing of the older male shows a much larger notch