Some Little Owl & Harrier Banding, mostly in Rehab.

Yesterday Ruth and I drove down to Timaru to band some Raptors that are in Rehab awaiting release back into the wild. The main purpose of the trip besides banding the birds was to help with the banding training of two of the women who assist with the birds' care. The two women, Jenni & Angie are very comfortable handling these birds and are picking up Banding very quickly and competently.

We banded eight birds in total, 5 Little Owls and 3 Harriers. The number of Little Owls I find amazing, we had a total of 9 birds in a large flight enclosure. 3 had already been banded and are waiting release. The other 6 were meant to be all banded but one bird avoided us. They are experts in zooming from one of the many hidey-holes to another and it was almost imposable to track individual birds, so to avoid undue stress we left the one without bling.

A couple of the Little Owls were showing clear indications of being in their first year. This one has two moulted primaries with the outer ones being browner juvenile feathers

This one still has the brown outer coverts of a young bird

Angie holding a bird while Jenni does the deed.

The three Harriers had come from as far afield as Twizel, Fairlie and Waimate. We were very fortunate to have 2 Vets with us both of whom are very interested in the care of wild birds. Both are very competent in handling them, and although they don't band it was great to discuss aspects and ideas about the practice.

The Timaru folk tend to use some Falconry techniques, probably due to a couple of their members being keen on Falconry.

Angie watching while Jenni bands one of the Harriers which is held by Zoe, one of the Vets.

A couple of the Harriers were old birds with very pale yellow eyes.

After the banding was done we were invited to participate in a BBQ including Fallow Deer sausages and a cold beer before starting our journey home. 

Wild bird catching

I have twice set the traps in attempts to catch Harriers in the last few weeks. The first was a bit of a disaster. I went out with high hopes to find that at least 3 birds had been let out by someone  unknown. Unfortunately by the way the traps had been moved about the birds would have been very stressed before being released.

The second attempt was a little more successful and although only one bird was caught it was our first recapture. It was great to be able to check the condition of the colour band which was, except for being a bit dirty, in good condition. This is the first time this particular type of band has been used in NZ as far as I know.

The bands of the recap still looking good, but only after 25 days. Hopefully we can check them again in a year or two.