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.