Final roundup for 2023 - Mostly Little Owl news.

 We have had no organised sessions for a while, mostly due to the sites we use at this time of year having very few birds. So mostly news about Little Owls and the banding of the usual Kingfisher Puli.

We were asked about six months ago if we could erect a couple of Owl nesting boxes at a site development where there were going to be several mature trees removed. The locals were concerned about the welfare of the resident Little Owls. Two boxes were duly erected then, when I went to check them about a month ago, it was found that one had been stolen. This theft must have taken some doing as the tree that the box was attached to was in a secure property. The thief would have had to have taken a long ladder over the fence and removed half a dozen large screws before retracing their steps. Unfortunately, the remaining box had no residents.

The Little Owl hat had been found on the road

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While I was recently away in Auckland, I received a message that a Little Owl fledgling had been found near the site. After much interchanging of messages, Ruud was the only person available to assist. After further discussion it was decided to place the bird in an old mailbox with the hope that its parents would find it. Unfortunately during the following night it died. After examining photos Ruud took and a discussion with him it was apparent that the bird had left the nest prematurely and was in poor health.

 

On my return to Christchurch, I decided to recheck the remaining box and have a look around. I was just in the process of getting the ladder into position when a lady called out and asked if I was interested in Owls. After a discussion with her it emerged that she had taken her 2-year-old Grandson to the Kids Playground across the road where they had found a baby Owl curled up on some of the equipment. Jan (who had come to assist me) and I retrieved the youngster and finding it in good health with a full crop banded it and placed it securely in the nearest tree. 

The little fella in its new temp home on a bed of dry woodchips.

Being held by Jan after being banded.

Yesterday Ruud and I with the assistance of 2 of his Grandsons banded a brood of five Kingfisher Puli. The nest was in the usual old bank/wall at the Quarry that has been used for at least the last five years. One of Ruud's Grandsons with his small hand did the extractions, but only just.

The last and smallest KF to be banded.

We also took the opportunity to check the Owl Box where we had banded four chicks a couple of weeks ago. There was only one left and it looked ready to fledge and join its siblings in the big wide world.

As it was 35 days ago

Now ready to fledge at about 36 days from hatching

I recently had a report from The Banding Office of an old Tui that I banded when I was living and banding in Wellington. It had been banded on13 March 2014 and was found dead near its banding site on 29 Nov 2023. At 3558 days between banding and recovery it was a pretty old bird.

Wish you all the best for the festive season and for 2024.

Some "Little" Little Owls and a few others

 Over the last few days we have banded seven Little Owlets in two of our specially designed nesting boxes. This is our highest number banded in a year. The first 3 to be banded were in a box on the outskirts of Rangiora. This box was erected about 18 months ago and appeared to have been used last spring but unfortunately access problems prevented us from checking it out properly. We were more successful this year. On Monday we were able to gain access and got a bit of a surprise as the three chicks were of a bandable size. I had expected them to be much smaller with their mother still in attendance, and hoping to band her also. With the aid of a borrowed ladder and a workshop bench we were able to band the three youngsters.

Collecting the victims

Yesterday, Tuesday, Jan and I checked the occupied box at our Cashmere Rd site and found that the four chicks there, although slightly smaller than the Rangiora birds, were still bandable so they duly received their bling.

One of the chicks had what appeared to be a half-swallowed wing protruding from its beak.

A week or so ago we had a banding session at the Halswell Quarry using the same net sites as the previous session. As is usually the case numbers were down, but we still managed to process 15 birds.  Except for 2 recaps all were new but these 2 were interesting. A Chaffinch that was banded on 12 Sept 2019 is now at 1533 days our oldest recapture of this species. The other was a House Sparrow that had been banded 25 May 2018 and at 2008 days a reasonable old bird but it is not our oldest.

Yesterday I received a message from the Banding Office about the death of a Tui that I had banded when I was banding near Queenstown on 20 Sept. 2019. It was found about 3km from its banding site but other details a bit sketchy because of the way it was reported.

No Banding sessions but some youngsters banded including a new species for the group.

 We haven't had any sessions for a couple of weeks but there have been a number of young birds receive their bling.

Starling, - we have banded 17 puli, all were in nest boxes. Phil banded 10 in his boxes at his place in Motukarara  and I have banded 7. 3 in a neighbour's box and 4 in one of my boxes. We are likely to band some more when we recheck the Little Owl boxes, as many have been taken over by Starlings.

One of the newly banded Starlings.

Song Thrush - 9 banded, 5 in a nest at the Quarry. The nest was found during our last session, but the chicks were too small to band. Ruud and I went back a week or so later to give them their bling. Ruud also banded 4 in a nest at his property.

Welcome Swallow - Ruud banded 4 in a nest at a friend's property near the Quarry.

Spur-winged Plover - There was a successful nest on one of the playing fields at the Halswell Domain and Ruud suggested that it might be possible to catch a couple of the youngsters. He proved to be correct and 2 were duly banded. They take the same size bands as the Little Owls do and this gave us a chance to try out a new band designated as EP, which is from a different manufacturer from the old E bands.

Yours truly banding his first Spur-winged Plover.

The chick with it's bling.

Even at this age the "Mask" is developing.

Little Owls - We currently have 2 birds incubating eggs, 1 at Kenny's place in North Canterbury and 1 at our Cashmere Rd site. Both birds had been banded a year ago. The one at Kennys was unsuccessful in raising chicks but the Cashmere Rd bird raised 4 chicks to fledging. Interestingly both birds have changed boxes. We also have another active nest box but have been unable to gain access to it. Hopefully we will get to check it in the next week or so.

We got a bit of a surprise to find a band already on the leg.

 

Halswell Quarry Friday 20 Oct. An enjoyable morning and a couple of old birds.

 We had a banding session near the middle car park of the Quarry yesterday. With very comfortable conditions, perhaps a bit much bright sun but I didn't hear anyone complaining about that. With several of the nets in the shade the lack of wind was a big advantage. With Della, Vanessa, Ruud and Chris we had a small but very experienced team of banders and Jan was our chief helper out.

It wasn't a big catch with 23 birds processed, 16 being new and 7 recaptures. The recapture rate was, I think, very good and included a couple of reasonable old birds. Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)

Chaffinch - 1 (1)

The new bird was a young female.

Silvereye - 2 (1)

House Sparrow - 7 (3) one of the recaps was banded 10 May 2018 and at 1989 days our 2nd oldest House Sparrow recaptured at about a month short of beating the oldest bird which is the oldest of any species.

Blackbird - 4 (3) another old bird amongst the recaps. It was banded 25 May 2018 and it is now our oldest Blackbird recap.

Surprising all the Blackbirds were older birds with no juveniles caught.

An attempt to catch Yellowhammers.

A couple of weeks ago a large flock of Yellowhammers was found feeding on the Rugby League field at the Halswell Domain. A few days later Ruud and I had a not very successful attempt to catch some. Our timing was poor as the field had been mown the afternoon before, cutting off all the seeding weeds. As well there were two vehicles roaring around re-marking the field and spraying around all the edges.

We ended up catching only 7 birds, 5 yellowhammers 1 House Sparrow and a Starling.

One of the Yellowhammers, aged as a young bird.

The Starling was a female, probably breeding in the area.

 

Only a little bit of banding recently - mostly rehab birds.

 There hasn't been much banding lately. We went to the Queenstown area for a few days a couple of weeks ago and it was an eventful trip. Gale force winds then an earthquake followed by a very large fire. When we got to Queenstown the weather had turned and it was teeming down. The following day we had almost continuous thunder and lightning. On the Friday we were woken by our phones sounding an alarm to let us know that a state of emergency had been declared in Queenstown due to slips and flooding. That night it snowed, and we had a trip back with everything except the road covered with the white stuff.

We made a detour to Timaru on the return trip to band a couple of Harriers that were in rehab and almost ready for release.

Back in Christchurch I banded a couple of nestling Blackbirds at Jan's place. Their mother was a bird Jan calls Mrs Green. She was banded with a green colour band a couple of years ago so Jan could keep an eye on the birds around the garden. This is the first time we have been able to definitely identify her chicks.

This last Friday I assisted Pauline the vet at the South Is Wildlife Hosptial to band some birds she had in rehab. There were 3 Harriers, 2 Little Owls and a Kingfisher.

A Little Owl waiting for its bling 

I will just have a little peek.

Getting my new band, first of its kind.

The Kingfisher almost ready to go

The Harriers had a colour band as well as a metal one.

Two of the Harriers, 1 in Timaru and 1 in Christchurch had repair jobs done on their tails. 
As tails are used a lot in maneuvering this procedure helps their survival when released.

Halswell Quarry 7 Sept - A quiet mornig

 We had a session at the Quarry this morning, catching only a handful of birds. The total was 9, with 6 new birds and 3 recaptures. The species were (recaps in brackets) Silvereye 2, Chaffinch 1, House Sparrow 2 (1) Greenfinch 1 (1) and Blackbird (1) 

The total included a couple of interesting recaps. The most significant was a House Sparrow that had been banded 15 Feb 2018. This bird is now at 2030 days from banding our oldest recap of any species at the Quarry. The original banding date was only a couple of months after we started banding at this site. The bird has now been captured 4 times, all at the same site. The Blackbird had been banded at the other end of the Quarry on 19 March 2020 as a juvenile.

We have also had a day banding Harriers last week with limited success. We caught 3 new birds and made 1 recapture.

Friday 18 Aug - An extremely busy morning

 On Friday we had a session at Jan's place on Kennedys Bush Rd next to the Halswell Quarry. With only four of us and a huge number of birds we were kept very busy. In total we processed 122 birds with by far the most being Silvereyes with 111 new and 11 recaptures.  The only others banded were 7 House Sparrows and 3 Greenfinch, all new. The low numbers of non-Silvereyes was probably that with someone at the nets almost constantly extracting Silvereyes the more wary species stayed away. With just 10m of net up, 1x6m, 1x4m, there wasn't much room for birds to squeeze in.

The team consisted of Jan, our host and bag carrier, general helper and coffee maker, Kenny the chief bander, Chris extracting and bander of birds and yours truly keeping out of the way of the workers.

Jan busy carrying bags between other duties.

Amongst the recaps were several banded in 2019 with 2 that were banded on 1 Aug 2019 which are now our oldest recaptured Silvereyes. Interestingly this was the first time that they have been recaptured as was also the case with a couple of other older recaps. It would appear that after an absence of several years a flock of Silvereyes have returned to the area, perhaps because of recent snow falls.

A number of the Silvereyes were suffering from what appears to be Pox lesions. As we do not usually get many poxy birds at this site, I suspect that they have arrived recently, possibly with a flock including the older recaps.

Several birds had Pox above the bill, possibly due to getting infected when extracting berries from a thorny bush.

One of the worst pox cases. I don't think that the bird's future is very bright.

I don't think this is pox but possibly due to some sort of mite infection. We have had about 1-2 cases per year for the last few years. 

Harrier Banding over the last few weeks.

 We have managed to get some Harrier banding done since the last post. This is despite constant interruptions due to rain either real or forecast as well as a significant family birthday to celebrate and a family bereavement. 

We had the traps set at the Cashmere Rd/Hoon Hay Valley site and continued to catch a number of birds. Initially mostly new ones, with 7 banded but then it was mostly recaps with 6 caught in one day and only 1 new one. 

An older female probably in its second year.

A first year female with a dark brown eye.

We then moved the traps out to the Kaitorete Spit on the seaward side of Lake Ellesmere. This is an area that we would like to target Harrier banding but logistically it is a difficult area to operate in due to distance and unpredictable weather.

We managed to get in two half days of banding before the weather, with heavy rain and strong winds, stopped any progress. It was another 3 weeks before we could set the traps again. During this time there appeared to be an almost complete departure of birds with very few seen, and the only bird caught was a recapture. This was an old male and probably the resident breeding one.

The pale-yellow eye of the old chap.

Phil holding the old male.

We have now moved the traps back to the Lakeside area on the other side of Lake Ellesmere where we had a big catch of birds back in May. In a couple of half day sessions on Friday and Saturday we caught 4 new birds and made 3 recaptures. As was the case at the Spit Harrier numbers appear to have dropped considerably. The recaps included one banded back in March. It was first caught on Friday and then again the next day. One of the new birds banded on Friday was also recaptured on Saturday. It appears that some birds are slow learners. I find it interesting that none of the 22 birds banded at the same trap settings back in May were recaptured.

We have also banded 5 Harriers that were in rehab at the South Island Wildlife Hospital and were getting ready for release. These birds came from as far afield as Haast on the West Coast and an urban bird from down the road at the Riccarton Racecourse. It had probably been suffering from secondary poisoning after eating a rat poisoned by an anticoagulant.

A rehab Harrier is released and a bunch of Silvereyes captured.

 On Saturday 17th I was invited to the release of a Harrier that had been injured and was being released back into the wild. It had obviously been feeding on a road killed Hare along with another Harrier on Bealey Rd near Aylesbury when they were struck by a vehicle. The other bird was killed and this one was injured and eventually taken to the NZ Raptor Trust's Hospital in Timaru. After several weeks of TLC from Jenni and Angie and their team he was now fit to be released.

The injured Harrier was initially found by a passing motorist then a local woman came along and assisted but the bird had scramble through a fence and they were unable to catch it and had to wait for her son to come home from school to catch it.

As well as being an observer I was invited along to supervise the banding of this bird. This is done so hopefully information of his survival can be gathered. He was released on a very quiet road near where he was originally found. There were two bands put on him, a metal DOC one with a unique number and a return address to the DOC Banding Office in Wellington on the right leg. On the left leg a Colour band with a 3 digit number. This band was Red with White numbers, which is the colour combination of a Harrier banded in Canterbury. 

The Bands. The DOC one on right leg and Canterbury coloured one on left

The big moment of take off.

Darren the father of the brave lad that caught the injured bird ready for release.
His son is in the background

People gathering for the release.

Angie from The NZ Raptor Trust banding the bird and Tracy who assisted in the bird's capture holding it.

Banding at Jan's last Thursday

We had a successful session at Jan's place on Kennedys Bush Rd on Thursday. Just a small team of Jan, Andrew and myself so we only set up two nets, a 4m and a 9m but this produced a steady flow of birds. There was not much variety with all being Silvereyes except for 2, a House Sparrow and a Bellbird. There were 26 new Silvereyes and 8 recaptures. There were some interesting birds amongst the recaps with 3 originally banded in 2019, 2 on the 1st of August and 1 on the 27th of June. This bird is now the oldest Silvereye we have recaptured. Another bird was originally banded here 11 June 2020 then recaptured at our Cashmere Rd site 28 July last year and now it is back at Jan's.

One of the old Silvereyes

Andrew with the Bellbird, a rarely caught female.

 

More Harrier Banding, Recaptures and a Recovery

 We have continued to be successful with our Harrier trapping and banding. We moved some traps from out in the country to be nearer Christchurch on a farm on Cashmere Rd. We had the traps set there for about a week last winter and were happy with 3 birds caught. This time with actual trapping time restricted by wet weather we banded 10 new birds and recaptured 3. Two of the recaps had been banded recently but the other was 1 of the 3 from last year. This bird is now our oldest recapture being just short of a year. Part of the purpose of this study is to follow the changes in eye colour as a bird ages. They have dark brown eyes when first fledged, this changes to a pale yellow in an old bird.

Ruud holding one of the new Cashmere birds. A youngster with a dark brown eye. .

Kenny holding the first Harrier he has banded. An old female with a pale
yellow eye.

The recap showing a paler eye

The darker brown eye of a year ago.

There have also been birds caught at our Motukarara site. Three new and four recaptures, the oldest recap was banded back in February.

We have also had an interesting recovery reported. A banded bird was found in a winter feed crop on Milltown Rd about 2km from where it was banded. It was in very poor condition, very light and unable to stand, it died shortly after being found. It had obviously been there for a considerable time having trampled down an area of crop It is presumed that the bird had dropped into the foliage after prey and had been unable to fly out this would have been accentuated by everything being wet including its plumage.

The unfortunate bird as it was found.

Harrier Banding update - A couple of busy days.

 After a quiet period with low catches and major weather holdups we had a couple of huge days. 

The ground was too wet to drive on so we could only set traps through gateways, but we managed to find enough obliging property owners to provide enough sites. This meant some extra driving but it proved worthwhile. 

Last Thursday the three Reese boys ( well actually old men!) set up and baited a number of traps. After a coffee break we commenced banding and kept banding until nearly dark. It's surprising how quickly it gets dark at the moment. We banded a total of 11 new birds we also caught 1 twice in the morning. It had an empty crop but in the afternoon with a full crop it weighed 70g heavier. The number of birds banded was a new record for one day beating the old highest total of 7 by a considerable number.

My two helpers for the day, twins Alan on the left and John on the right.

On Monday this week it was decided to try again. The team for the day was Ruud, my brother Alan and myself. I have a rule of thumb that when working the same site within a couple of weeks the numbers caught drops by about half. So I was expecting a catch of about 5 or 6 birds-how wrong I was! After setting the traps and a short break we were busy for the rest of the day. In fact we were unable to process the birds in the last 2 traps which contained 9 birds 4in one & 5 in the other. Two of the birds were already banded and we were able to read the colour bands before releasing them all without handling any. The total for the day was 11 new birds 3 recaptures and the 2 sighted in the last traps.

Ruud banding with Alan controlling the sharp bits.

Ruud proudly holding the first wild caught Harrier he has banded. 

There appears to have been a large influx of Harriers into the Ellesmere area in the last few weeks with most of them being young birds with a few older ones Hopefully we will get some recoveries/sightings from wherever they go to or come from.

Two birds that are probably starting to change out of juvenile plumage and eye colour