We haven't had any regular sessions for a while due absences and other activity. But there have been a few birds banded of interested. We banded 5 Kingfisher pulli, they were from a nest in a bank where Jan thought kingfisher had nested last year. After checking the area a number of times activity was noted with fresh whitewash below a hole and a raucous racket coming from inside. A few of us met on Sunday morning to see if we could get the chicks out. My hands were far to big but fortunately Jan has far smaller and delicate ones and was able to extract them. I was very surprised to find that there were 5, expecting 2 possibly 3. There was a surprising difference in the size of the chicks but as this is the first ones we have banded I didn't really know what to expect.
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| Eleanor banding the smallest of the chicks. |
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| In order to get them back they needed a little poke in the backside to get them to shuffle back to the nest chamber. |
We have also recently banded a brood of 4 Goldfinch, the nest was at Ruud's place which is next to Jan's on the rim of the Quarry. Ruud is known throughout New Zealand as "Ruud the Bug Man" we are hoping to turn him into "Ruud the Bird Man"
On Sunday we also put a 4m net up across the entrance to a toilet block where Welcome Swallow nest each year. Managed to recapture the female which was originally banded in Nov 2017 at the same site. It was also caught in 2018 so great to know that it is site faithful and is still surviving. It is also now our oldest recap of any species at the Quarry being banded only a week or so after we started banding there.
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