Akaroa - A belated post 22-23 May

A few of the group were invited to join Laura when she was colour banding Tui around Akaroa. This is a project attempting to check on the progress of the population folowing the species reintroduction to the area a number ofyears ago. Laura's permit only allows her to band Tui and not any bycatch, as the permit that the group bands under most passerine species are bandabe. So the plan was that Laura would colour band the Tui and we would band any bycatch. On the morning of Saturday 22 May we started at a site at Takamatua at the head of the Akaroa Harbour.This proved to be vary successful for us but not so for the Tui catchers. All the the birds caught were adult male Bellbird of which there were incredible numbers, although there were Tui about they avoided the net. We were treated to a fabulus morning tea with great view. Ruud also took the opertunaty to do what he is very good at, both entertain and educate younger folk. In the afternoon and on the Sunday morning most of the group moved on to a site in the Akaroa township. I unfortunatly couldn't join them having to head back to Christchurch. I gather that the catch at this new site was fantastic with a total of 17 new Tui banded plus a few recaps from previous sessions. Bellbirds also proved to numerous, with the total for the trip being 22. There was also a few other species like Silvereye and Blackbird banded.

Jan's Place Kennedys Bush Rd 20 May - at last a bit of variety.

We had our first session of the year at Jan's garden this morning. Numbers of birds are slowly building up although there is still a lot of natural food about and it will probably be another month or so until there a big catches.

There were 18 birds of 7 species processed with all but 1 new. The new birds were -

Blackbird 4, Chaffinch 1, Silvereye 2, Dunnock 1, Bellbird 1, Fantail 1 and 7 House Sparrows and 1 recap which was originally banded at this site Sept 2019 then recaptured at Ruud's July 2020 and now back where it started.

The Blackbirds were all Male, two old blokes and a couple of young fellas. 
This is the first two blackbirds caught. The old bird underneath and a young one at the top which must have fledged very late as it hadn't completed its moult.

Ririka and Ruud with the first two Blackbirds.
Ririka has just received her L1 banding permit and this is the first Blackbird she has banded. 

Ririka with her first Chaffinch.

Ruud proudly displaying "his" Bellbird.

Halswell Quarry Thu. 13 May - a reasonable catch but little variety.

 We had a session at the Quarry yesterday morning with nets set around a fruiting Arbutus (Strawberry) Tree with the aim of catching Blackbirds and perhaps a Bellbird or two. Although we caught a reasonable number of birds in total only 1 Blackbird was caught and Bellbirds just sang from the tops of nearby trees. 

Twenty one birds were caught, all new with 1 each of Blackbird, Song Thrush and Dunnock. The rest, 18 were all House Sparrows, interestingly all but 2 were males. If it hadn't been for Alice extracting a bird as we were taking the nets down there would a ratio of only 1 Female to 16 Males.

Alice with the first bird banded for the day - the Song Thrush.
As you can see the morning started out pretty cold.

Most of the team. Left to Right Alice, Kenny, Ririka our scribe, Phil, Laura and William who was observing the joys of bird banding for the morning.