The Banding of Jerry the Falcon 10 Jan 22

 On Monday I had the privilege  of banding a NZ Falcon youngster named Jerry, it was originally named Gerry after the landowners Father but as it now appears to be a girl it had a name change. After a 2 hour drive we were met by Don the land owner and had a crossing of the upper Rakaia River. Fortunately in his big 4x4 which could cope with the journey.

After lunch we had 30min journey to the nest site which is underneath an old hay feeder. Amazingly the space that the nest is in is only about 24cm in this space the pair had constructed a substantial nest. This is unusual as most books state that the nest is usually just a scrape with little or no nesting material. Perhaps Falcons don't read these books.

The nest is under the left end of this old hay feeder.

The banding party was a bit of a family affair, Don my nephew, the landowner, two of my sisters, Margaret, Don's mother, another sister known as "Birdy Bev" and myself. When Don first found the nest, which was the result of very good observation skills and detective work, it contained 3 newly laid eggs.

16 Nov - newly laid eggs

When he next checked the nest a month later there was a newly hatched chick. No sign of the other 2 eggs, possibly broken or removed by the parents.

17 Dec - newly hatched chick

Ten days later he again checked it and there was a fat looking downy youngster. 

26 Dec - little fatty.

Photographing the nest was a matter of a quick look under thrusting his arm under the hay feeder taking a photo then getting away as quick as he could before the extremely protective mother could  make a direct hit.

The banding went extremely well, Don got the chick and we retired to the protection of the Landcruiser cab where we could band in relative peace.

10 Jan - Don making the hand over.

10 Jan - Jerry the Falcon at approximately 24 days of age

Jerry with her new bling

Cashmere Rd Thu 6 Jan - the rain came but the birds forgot

We had a session at the Cashmere Rd site Thursday morning. A week ago there was a huge flock of birds, mostly Starling, Blackbird & Song Thrush feeding on plums on several large trees. Unfortunately by the time we got over the New Year and subsequent holidays the birds had departed and we had a very poor catch rate. We only caught two birds a Blackbird and a Song Thrush, before it started to rain. We were packed up and on our way home by 10am.

It looks like the Blackbird had a close encounter with a predator as it was replacing four feathers on the right side of its tail.

The only highlight of the morning was that Rudd on his bike ride home spotted a dead Starling on the side of Cashmere Rd. Being a good birdman he checked it out and found that it was banded. The bird had been banded at the Halswell Quarry last September, so not very long and at about 1km not a great distance but still a good record.

Last Tuesday we did some more Pulus banding. We banded 3 more Kingfisher chicks from a nest in a retaining bank below the workshop in the Quarry and 3 Welcome Swallow chicks from an old concrete bunker behind the workshop.

The three Kingfisher youngsters. A much more even sized brood than the one last month.

Jan with her arm in the Kingfisher hole. Reminds me about a song about a Woodpecker hole

.

One of the Welcome Swallow chicks