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.
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| 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.
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| Ruud banding with Alan controlling the sharp bits. |
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| 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.
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