Queenstown - The last session for the year

No banding today but I had nets up yesterday morning and managed to catch 28 birds of 6 species. Fourteen were new and fourteen recaps. Amongst those caught were several starting to moult their primary wing feathers which was a bit of a surprise.

Birds caught were -
Blackbird - 0 (1) this bird was banded on the third day banding here and was the oldest bird recaptured for about an hour.
Song Thrush - 1 (0) a bird starting to moult.

The Thrush was moulting the right wing out of the usual order, although the left was in the ususl sequence.

Chaffinch - 3 (1)
Redpoll - 0 (1) a female banded as an unsexed juvenile back at the begining of March, now starting to moult, but still surprisingly has a prominant brood patch.

The Redpolls moulting right wing.

House Sparrow - 9 (11) a number of juveniles starting to moult but no older birds. One of the recaps was banded on the first day of banding here and is now the oldest bird recaptured here.

One of the moulting H Sparrows

Tui - 0 (1)
Califoronian Quail - 1 (0) the third banded here and the first male.

The male Cal Quail - a real handsome dude.

I wish you all the best for the new year. For me 2016 has been an interesting and enjoyable year and I look forward to 2017.

Karori Cemetery 3 May - Blackbirds & Tui

A group of us gathered at the Karori Cemetery this morning.  The first couple of hours were a bit frustrating as despite a good forecast we had periods of misty drizzle. Consequently the nets were slow in being erected but despite this we still had a reasonable catch of 14 birds.

Katherine banding a Tui with the sharp bits controlled by Dave and Otis keeping an eye on progress.

Most were Blackbirds with 9 new and a recap.  The recap was the same one we caught a couple of weeks ago and it still holds the record for the oldest bird recaptured at this site now extended by 12 days.
One new Silvereye was caught and 3 Tui. The first Tui caught was in heavy moult in all areas - the first one caught moulting this year. By the notch in P8 it was judged to be a bird in its first year.

The Tui wing showing P7 growing and P8 with a small notch

Yesterday I retrieved a dead banded Tui from the road, probably the result of being hit by a car. It had been banded in Nov 2012 as a first year so would now be aged as a 4. The bird was in pristine condition having just completed its moult so I took the opportunity to take a photo of the wing to show the development of the notch of a known aged bird.

The wing of the dead bird showing the bigger notch of an adult.

Mt Albert Wednesday 27 March - Silvereyes

Finally managed a session at the Mt Albert fennel patch this morning. I had tried unsuccessfully twice in the last week, on Sunday morning with perfect conditions I found that someone had nicked most of the guys and as I hadn't taken any spares had to abort. Then on Monday got there to find it was too windy. This morning was successful with good conditions of cloud and a light southerly. Caught 29 new Silvereyes and 5 recaps, the oldest recap was banded May 2012 all the rest were banded over the last month or so. The only bycatch was a single Dunnock.

Like the Sparrows at Island Bay last Saturday a lot of the Silvereyes are nearing the end of their moult with several scoring in the forties.

Silvereye with a moult score of 44 out of a possible 45

Island Bay Saturday 22 March - Heaps of Sparrows

Ros, Otis and I had a fairly busy morning at our Island Bay site this morning.

Ros enjoying a joke at Otis's expense

We were joined later by Sarah J and Kyle who claimed they had trouble finding us but we later found that  Sarah had been talking to her father in Canada, so we won't hold that against them. They unfortunately arrived too late for our morning tea which is a feature of banding at this site.

The full team (minus the slacker behind the camera) at work

We had near perfect conditions for most of the morning until the southerly wind got a bit strong. We caught 90 birds of 5 species with 77 new and 11 recaps. As is usual at this site during the Autumn the catch was dominated by House Sparrows, with the other noticeable thing being the almost total absence of Tui with only an occasional bird heard in the distance.

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 2 (0)

One of the Blackbirds, a juvenile had almost all of its head in pin feathers

Chaffinch - 2 (1)
Dunnock - 3 (1)
Starling - 1 (0)
House Sparrow - 69 (11) the oldest recap was banded Feb 2012.
All the Sparrows were in active wing moult with a number scoring 44 but none made the perfect 45.

One of the near perfect wings.

Interestingly the bird with the lowest score of only 5 also had the shortest wing length of 71mm but it was at 33.7g the heaviest sparrow weighed on the day.

Island Bay Monday 17 Feb - Heaps of Sparrows

Annette and I had a busy time at our Island Bay site this morning. I had hoped to get a few more people along but no such luck. We only caught 5 species and the catch was dominated, as is usual at this site, by House Sparrows. Although we caught 90 birds there was only 1 recapture, and this was partly due to the vast majority of birds being juveniles.

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 4

All the Blackbirds were juveniles and were a very motley lot with their partly moulted body feathers 

Dunnock - 8
Chaffinch - 7
Tui - 2
House Sparrow - 68 (1) the recap was banded Dec 2010 so a reasonably old bird

Most of the Sparrows were in primary moult with this one doing it a bit differently and not moulting in sequence.

The recap had an unusual pattern  on her lesser coverts.

Juvenile males were at various stages of moult with the one on the left nearly finished while the right one is just starting.
Others had not started and had only fledged a short time ago.

As usual we had great hospitality from our host Marion and Ken with a fine feast to keep us going. This was much appreciated especially as they had had a very busy weekend with their involvement at the Island Bay fair.

Houghton Bay 24 Sept - Silvereyes

Ros and I had a session at the Houghton Bay Stream this morning with the principal aim of catching Silvereyes and checking for moult. We were successful with this and as well caught a few other birds. In all we caught 75 birds of 5 species with 63 new and 12 recaps.

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 1 (1)
Dunnock - 2 (0)
Greenfinch - 1 (0)
Grey Warbler - 1 (2) the oldest was banded Nov 2010

All the Grey Warblers had the reddish eyes of adult birds

Silvereye - 58 (9) 16 of the new birds and 3 of the recaps were in moult.  With this being just over 25% it is a significant number. Whether this is an unusual year with a lot of late fledged birds delaying the moult until the spring or whether we have not paid enough attention other years (and also not usually catching very many spring birds) I am not sure.

Of the 9 recaptures only 1 was banded at this site; with over 3300 banded there in the last 5 years this is surprising. 5 birds were banded at the Mt Albert site with 4 being from the 164 that were banded this year, 2 were from Hornsey Rd and another from Houghton Valley School.

There were several Silvereyes with pox-like lesions mostly on the foot but one had a large one below the eye.

Silvereye with pox like lesion 

  On a slightly different subject we had a report from a Zoo staff member that a band combination had been recovered from the remains (just the legs) of a bird in the Serval enclosure. On checking our records I found that this was not one of our birds. Suspecting it might be a Bellbird from Zealandia I forwarded the report on to them and was extremely surprised to hear back that it was a Hihi (Stichbird) that had made its way across town.

Houghton Bay Friday 14 Sept - Mostly Silvereyes

With the Houghton Bay stream being mostly out of the near gale northerly I set up the nets there this morning. Had a reasonably successful session with 40 birds of 6 species caught but although a this appears to be a good variety by far the majority were Silvereye. The recapture rate was extremely low with only 2 banded birds caught.

Species caught were - 2 Greenfinch, 1 Goldfinch, 1 Chaffinch, 1 recap Grey Warbler, 1 Tui and 33 new Silvereye and just 1 recap. The recap was banded here at my place back in July which adds a little bit of credence to the theory that the Silvereye from here have gone over to Houghton Valley to feed on flowering Karo.

Seven of the new Silvereye were in active wing moult; the first time I have come across this at this time of year but must admit I haven't always looked

Silvereye AP-6706 in moult

Birds AP-6688 & 6687 which were caught together I suspect are siblings from a late brood

Silvereye AP-6688 in moult

Silvereye AP-6687 in moult

 There appears to have been some young engineers at work in the stream doing a bit of dam building with dams built under two net sites. How this will affect the birds I am not sure; probably for the better.

The Dam under the bottom net

The Dam under the top net.