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)
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| One of the Yellowhammers, aged as a young bird. |
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| The Starling was a female, probably breeding in the area. |
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