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

Oystercatcher Catching and The latest Banding Office Newsletter

 Last week a consortium of people attempted to Catch South Island Pied Oystercatchers (SIPO)on the New Brighton Spit. The catchers included people from DOC, Birds NZ and Christchurch City Council. The plan was to use a cannon net to catch them while they roosted at high tide at the end of the Spit. The plan worked with 99 birds colour flagged and 10 fitted with GPS tracking packs.

Photos courtesy of Andrew Crossland.

The net almost ready to fire.


Either Kenny showing Phil how it's done or Phil showing Kenny

Phil completing the job.

The Finished product.

The latest Banding Office Newsletter

20th edition of BirDBanD: 

Another Harrier Update

 Things have been a little quiet on the banding front lately especially with Passerine banding due to rubbish weather and a lack of catchable birds. The only ones have been caught by Ruud at his place when he got a bit bored and put a net up for some practice. He didn't catch much but did recapture a couple of Silvereyes that are almost certainly a pair. They were both banded on the 1 Aug 2019 at Jan's, which is only a about 100m from the recapture site so have probably stayed together for at least several years.

One of Jan's/Ruud's old Silvereyes

We have also attempted to catch some more Harriers with varied success. We have set the trap at Phils on several occasions with only one attempt being successful with two birds caught.  Both sessions were of short duration due to inclement weather. This week we have also set traps on two occasions near Southbridge with four traps set each time. On Monday we had some success with 3 birds caught, Two young birds caught together and an adult female. All were caught in the same trap and I suspect the older bird is the 2 youngsters' mother. Yesterday (11 May) we again set the traps with even less success, with the only catch being the recapture of the adult from 3 days before. The poor result was not because of a lack of birds as we had a number inspecting the traps but not going in. Perhaps they are not hungry at the moment having feasted on some of the duck hunters' mistakes.

The under wing of the Adult showing the moult progress.

The adult with a yellow eye

One of the young birds with its brown eye.

We have had a couple of birds we banded featured on TV this week. If you watched "Seven Sharp" on TV 1 last evening, you might have seen an article on Raptors being presented to a school in Timaru. The two stars were a Harrier and a Little Owl. The keen eyed amongst you might have seen that both birds were banded. This was done at the NZ Raptor Trust property in Timaru with our help.

The TV Star being held by her trainer.

Angie banding the TV star.