Not much Banding as we get ready to relax.

 There hasn't been much banding recently. We had planned to set traps in an attempt to catch Harriers yesterday but were thwarted by the weather. The plan was to set the traps at my niece's property near Southbridge. The forecast was for light rain to develop in the afternoon, but it arrived several hours early just as we were starting to set the traps up. The trapping attempt was abandoned, and we will be unlikely to try again until next year. 

We did manage to band some interesting birds last Tuesday when Jan, Ruud and I banded some interesting Puli. At the Cashmere Rd property there were 4 Little Owls in one of our nest boxes which were duly processed and returned to their box. This is the largest brood we have managed to band. 

Ruud removing the Owlets from their box

One of the little, Little Owls getting its bling

Dan the property owner looking very happy with one of "his" owls

 

A photo of one of the chicks taken a fortnight ago.

After the Owls we then went to the Quarry to check out a Kingfisher nest hole. Judging by last year's records I thought that the chicks would still be too small. I was wrong they were well feathered and ideal for banding. The 4 chicks duly received their bling while they squawked and pooped as Kingfisher chicks do. Interestingly last year in a nest hole in the same bank we banded 3 chicks on Jan 4, so about 20 days later than this year.

Jan, who had the smallest hands extracting the youngsters from their nest hole

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The chicks were all well feathered, not like last year when there was a big variation.

Halswell Quarry - Thu 1 Dec In Japanese Garden

 We had a session amongst the ornamental Cherry Trees yesterday morning. These trees are a magnificent sight when in full flower in the spring. They then produce small fruit that are very sour (at least to my taste as I have tried them) however birds esp. Blackbirds find them to their liking. We set the nets up with near ideal conditions, little wind and overcast. Unfortunately, the cloud dispersed midmorning and the nets became very visible.

We didn't have a big catch, processing 17 birds but with 8 species at least there was some variety. All except 1 were new. Blackbirds our target species made up the bulk of the catch with 10 birds. Blackbirds are ideal for trainees who need experience in handling larger birds. Other species caught were 2 Bellbirds and 1 each of Goldfinch, House Sparrow, Song Thrush, Silvereye and Starling. The most interesting bird of the day was a recaptured Chaffinch the only recap of the day. It had been banded on 27 Oct 2018 and is now the oldest recaptured Chaffinch we have had. This is the first capture since it was banded, and it was banded about 200m from the recapture site.

Grant banding the first bird of the day

Stephanie with the first Bellbird she has banded

Della banding "her" Bellbird

We don't catch a lot of Goldfinch, this one was judged to be an adult female.

Juvenile Blackbird, surprisingly for this time of year as all the Blackbirds except 2 were old birds.

The only Recap for the day, the old Chaffinch.

As well as the above birds caught in mist nets, we have banded a number of nestlings over the last few days. Five Starlings in one of the Owl boxes, 3 Blackbirds and 4 little Fantails in nests at Jan's place.

We also have 4 little Owlets in a box at Cashmere Rd that hopefully will be large enough to band in a week or so.

One of the Owlets.