Cashmere Rd Thu 21 Oct. - A quiet but enjoyable session.

 We had a session at our Cashmere road site this morning, I hadn't expected to catch a lot of birds which was the case. With only 10 birds processed it was fewer than I had thought, but with 6 species at least there was a bit of variety. All birds were new except for a Blackbird recap that had been banded a couple of months ago.

New birds were - 1 each of Silvereye and Chaffinch, 3 House Sparrows, 2 Starlings and 2 Goldfinch, the first we have caught for some time. 

Vanessa was able to band her first ever Chaffinch and Goldfinch. which made her day.

Thursday 7 Nov. at Ruud's Place - after a damp start an enjoyable morning

On Thursday morning we had a session at Ruud's place on Kennedys Bush Rd. This is just outside the Halswell Quarry boundary and very close to Jan's, where we have recently had a couple of banding sessions. Initially we were delayed by a period of light rain but once that cleared we had good conditions, very little wind and cloud cover. 

We processed 29 birds of 5 species with 25 new and 4 recaps. Species caught were -

House Sparrows - 17 (2) both the recaps were banded at Jan's over the last couple of months.

Blackbird - 3 (1)  The recap was banded at this site in July last year.

Greenfinch - 3 (1) the recap was originally banded in the Conservation area of the Quarry in Sept 2019, it was recaptured at Jan's July 2020 and now at Ruud's.

Dunnock & Chaffinch 1 new bird of each.

Today's team Left to Right - Alice who is expecting a new arrival in a few weeks. Ruud chief coffee maker and Host for the day, Jan - chief assistant, Helen first time with us but a pretty experienced bander and Della.

Halswell Quarry Thursday 30 Oct - an enjoyable morning

We had a session in the Conservation area of the Halswell Quarry on Thursday morning. Although we didn't catch a lot of birds we got some interesting ones and there was a bit of variety. 

For the first hour or so the weather was marginal with patches of light rain threatening to become more persistent. Fortunately it held off and eventually cleared. Twenty birds were processed with 11 new and 9 recaptures. 

With 7 species there was some variety Species caught were - (recaps in brackets) 

Starling - 1 (0) 

House Sparrow - 3 (1) 

Dunnock - 0 (2) both were reasonably old birds with the oldest banded in Feb 2019 and is now the oldest recap for the species.

 

Greenfinch - 4 (0) 

Chaffinch - 0 (1) it was banded in Sept 2018 and is the oldest Chaffinch recaptured at the Quarry and the 2nd oldest of any species.

 

Silvereye - 2 (5) with the warmer weather Silvereyes seem to have moved on and it is rare for us to catch more recaps than new. 

Grey Warbler - 1 (0) This bird was colour banded by Laura as the first bird of her new study to identify individual Grey Warblers by their song. Its an fasinating project and we will follow progress with interest.

While entering the data from the morning's banding I had a phone call from Jan reporting a death at her place. It was a banded Silvereye which had been banded at her place on 3 Oct 2019, and recaptured on 10 July 2020 still at Jan's place and now it has died there.