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.