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.
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| Grant banding the first bird of the day |
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| Stephanie with the first Bellbird she has banded |
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| Della banding "her" Bellbird |
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| We don't catch a lot of Goldfinch, this one was judged to be an adult female. |
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| Juvenile Blackbird, surprisingly for this time of year as all the Blackbirds except 2 were old birds. |
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| 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.
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| One of the Owlets. |
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