Cashmere Rd Thu 6 Jan - the rain came but the birds forgot

We had a session at the Cashmere Rd site Thursday morning. A week ago there was a huge flock of birds, mostly Starling, Blackbird & Song Thrush feeding on plums on several large trees. Unfortunately by the time we got over the New Year and subsequent holidays the birds had departed and we had a very poor catch rate. We only caught two birds a Blackbird and a Song Thrush, before it started to rain. We were packed up and on our way home by 10am.

It looks like the Blackbird had a close encounter with a predator as it was replacing four feathers on the right side of its tail.

The only highlight of the morning was that Rudd on his bike ride home spotted a dead Starling on the side of Cashmere Rd. Being a good birdman he checked it out and found that it was banded. The bird had been banded at the Halswell Quarry last September, so not very long and at about 1km not a great distance but still a good record.

Last Tuesday we did some more Pulus banding. We banded 3 more Kingfisher chicks from a nest in a retaining bank below the workshop in the Quarry and 3 Welcome Swallow chicks from an old concrete bunker behind the workshop.

The three Kingfisher youngsters. A much more even sized brood than the one last month.

Jan with her arm in the Kingfisher hole. Reminds me about a song about a Woodpecker hole

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One of the Welcome Swallow chicks

No recent Banding Sessions but some Pulus have new bling

 Although we have not had any organized sessions recently we have managed to band a number of youngsters.

Little Owl - Two banded in a nest box at the Cashmere Rd site These were eggs when we banded their mother a month or so ago.

One of the Little Owls held by a very Happy Bloke.

Starling - Three youngsters banded in a neighbour's nest box. They fledged on Christmas Eve, the second brood from this box this year.

Kingfisher - A brood of five banded at a property across the road from the Halswell Quarry. They also have fledged.

There was a huge difference in the development of the Kingfisher chicks, from well feathered to only just bandable.

Redpoll - Four were banded this morning at the Quaifers Rd Wetland.

Queenstown,Sat 16 June - a short but successful session.

Bex, who works in the Te Anau DoC Office and hopes to get her L2 permit for passerines and mist netting came over this afternoon, she already has some L2 qualifications. We made a start about 2 pm and took the nets down about 4. In that time we caught 48 birds of 9 species, we would have had 10 but a Greenfinch didn't wait around for it's bling. There were 28 new birds and 14 recaptures. Included was the first ever Brown Creeper, a species seen a couple of times but never caught before. Also we made our first recapture of a Kingfisher.

Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Chaffinch - 3 (0)
Dunnock - 0 (2)
House Sparrow - 3 (5)
Song Thrush - 1 (0)
Silvereye - 19 (5) one of the recaps was banded a week or so after banding comenced here and at 1000 days is the oldest recap of any species.
Brown Creeper - 1 (0) the first one banded here and the first one I have banded.

Our first ever Brown Creeper

Bellbird - 0 (1)
Tui - 0 (1)

Bex handling her first Tui

Kingfisher - 0 (1) it was banded 22 Dec 2015. We have only banded 4 here so amazing to get a recap after more than 2 years (907 days).

Bex with our first Kingfisher recap.

Prince of Wales Park - Saturday 30 March

Matu held a banding session this morning at the Prince of Wales Park and had reasonable success. Not a big number of birds but a steady flow which was good as we used it to also train and refresh Ruby, Bernard and Ben who work at Zealandia, in banding and handling birds. In all we caught 50 birds of 9 species, only 1 was a recapture but this is the first recap at this new site.

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 1
Chaffinch - 1 (1) the recap was banded about 5 weeks ago at our last session there.
Greenfinch - 2
Goldfinch - 14

Ruby, Ben and Bernard with 3 Goldfinch, all 1st year birds but at different stages of moult

House Sparrow - 2
Dunnock - 2
Grey Warbler - 3

Ruby with her first Grey Warbler just out of the net

And now it's banded

Fantail - 2
Silvereye - 10
Kingfisher - 1 This is the first Kingfisher we have caught in this banding year which finishes tomorrow so only just makes it into the stats for the year.

The first and only Kingfisher for the year.