Sunday 24 November 2019

Queenstown - the final roundup for a while.

We are now back in Christchurch having driven back on Saturday arriving last night. On Saturday morning I was able to erect a net and monitor while completing my chores and packing the car. I wasn't expecting much in the way of a catch, perhaps half a dozen or so. I was surprised to end up with 12 of 5 species, 7 new and 5 recaps. The majority of the new birds were juveniles with most of the recaps banded in the last year or so.
However there was one notable exception, a handsome male Chaffinch which had been banded 16 Sept 2015, 4 days after the first banding down there. At 1529 days from banding it is now the oldest recap of any species. Although it had been caught several times since banding it was 3 years since the last time.

Friday 22 November 2019

Queenstown - only limited banding

We drove down here on Monday but it wasn't a very good trip. By the time I got here I was crook as a dog, possibly due to a dodgy chicken pie I ate on the way down. Finally got a couple of nets up Thursday morning. Caught 19 birds of 5 species, 13 new and 6 recaps.

Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 2 (2)
Dunnock - 0 (1)
Starling - 3 (0) also 2 nestlings in one of the boxes I erected several months ago. Unfortunatly they had fledged from the other 3 boxes. There are a huge number of newly fledged birds about.
A couple of the Starlings caught together, probably a mother and daughter
House Sparrow - 3 (0)
Tui - 3 (3) including a juvenile and the oldest female recap.
The new juvenile, a little girl.
One of the older recaps, a stroppy old male.
This morning Rachel came over from Wanaka, primarily for a chin wag and a catch up on her various projects. We also put some nets up and managed to catch 12 birds of 7 species.

Blackbird - 1 (0)
Song Thrush - 1 (0) a recently fledged juvenile that had obviosly had a difficulty time.
The Thrush's tail showing several growth/fault bars.
Dunnock - 3 (1)
Chaffinch - 1 (1)
Redpoll - 3 (0) the first caught since March.
All the Redpoll were female.
House Sparrow - 0 (1)
Californian Quail - 1 (0) this was encourged into a net by Rachel after I had failed miserably with a pair earlier.
The Quail was a chubby female.

Rachel with her prize.

Wednesday 13 November 2019

Botanical Gardens Tuesday 12 Nov - a few birds

On Tuesday morning Luke and I put up a couple of nets in the NZ section of the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. This was in the hope of catching some of the newly fledged Bellbirds that were feeding in a Tree Fuchsia. Luke who is the curator of this section has been keeping an eye on them since they fledged a week or so ago.

We were only partly successful in our mission catching 1 of the youngsters. We also recaptured the bird presumed to be their father who was caught and banded a year ago in exactly the same spot. We also caught 3 birds as bycatch 1 each of Blackbird, Greenfinch and Dunnock.
Luke with the old boy,

He had the bright red eye of an adult.

The youngster, a female.

Thursday 7 November 2019

Halswell Quarry Thu 7 Nov. - only a few birds.

We had a session at the Quarry this morning and although conditions were good birds were scarce. We caught a total of 17  all new except for 1 House Sparrow recap.
Species caught were - 1 Silvereye, 2 Greenfinch, 1 Song Thrush, 3 Blackbirds and 9 House Sparrow + the recap.
Two of the Blackbirds were caught together, they were possibly Mother on the right with son on left.