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.