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.

Hornsey Rd 13 Sept - Greenfinch

Set the funnel trap here this morning and caught a couple of Greenfinch, set it again this evening and caught 8 more including a recap that was banded at the Zoo in April 08. Although not a big catch it is the most Greenfinch caught here in the last 2 years, prior to that 20 a day was not uncommon.

None of the Sparrows that have been scoffing food for the last month entered the trap and there is no sign of Silvereyes returning yet.

No Recent Banding

There hasn't been any banding done for the last week as I have been in Canterbury visiting family. I doubt whether there would have been much if I had been in Wellington as the weather has not been good as anyone watching the All Black /Puma test on Saturday night would have realised.

Did a bit of birding while down south seeing over 50 species including White Heron (Great Egret), Crested Grebe and Cattle Egret all at, or near, Lake Ellesmere.

Three of the Cattle Egrets 

I did manage to see some banded birds; not passerines, but some colour banded Wrybill at the Ashley Estuary

A couple of the colour banded Wrybill at the Ashley Estuary

I hope to do some banding in the next few days but with a bad forecast it might not be possible.

Houghton Bay - Saturday 1 Sept

Mary, Kate, Graeme and I had a rather disappointing session at the Houghton Bay Stream this afternoon. In all we caught 17 birds of 4 species with 14 new and 3 recaps. It started well with  8 birds in the first net round and then the flow became a trickle. The quiet time however gave us time to enjoy a large plate of pikelets that Mary had brought along.

Species caught were - 2 new Chaffinch, 1 new and 1 recap Grey Warbler.

Kate about to release the Grey Warbler recap after processing it.

 1 new Tui which was the last bird of the day and gave Graeme a chance to band his first Tui and 10 new Silvereyes and 2 recaps. 1 of the recaps was banded at 69 Hornsey Rd in July 10 and the other at Island Bay in Aug 08 so the birds had come a similar distance but from opposite directions.  Both were first time recaptures.

Mary who usually is the scribe with a Silvereye while daughter Kate  the bander looks on.

Houghton Valley School - Friday 31 August

Gen, Nick, Graeme and I had a banding session at the school with a number of children joining us for periods of time. We also had Kate come along to assist after school and a surprise visit from Siobain who used to live in the valley before moving to Picton a year ago.  She was a very keen member of our banding group.

It was Siobain's birthday so Gen presented her with a cake.

Dave the Caretaker who is one of our liaison people at the School and was the original person who suggested doing banding at the School with the kids was also present and brought along a couple of his friends for the experience.

Dave and friends, unfortunately we didn't have bands big enough for them.

Although we didn’t catch a lot of birds we still had a successful afternoon's banding. We had very pleasant conditions and it was much dryer underfoot than at the last session. In all we caught 20 birds of 3 species with 8 new birds and 12 recaptures.

Species caught were –

Blackbird – 3 new birds.

A Blackbird awaiting its release

Chaffinch – 1 recapture, a bird banded at the Houghton Bay stream on 28 Jan 2008 so is a reasonably old bird in at least its 5^th year. This is now the oldest bird we have caught at the School.

Silvereye – 5 new and 11 recaptures. 1 of the recaps was banded 31 May 2010 at our second session at this site. 2 others were banded at the Houghton Bay stream and another here at my place.

The first bird of the day

The second bird about to get its freedom

And its away

Although not all the children got to handle a bird they all showed great enthusiasm for the project with a lot of interesting comments and questions.

Karori Cemetery - Wednesday 29 August

Ros , Derek and I spent some time this morning at the Karori Cemetery. We put up a couple of nets to see what was about and also with the hope that we would catch a colour banded Tui that has lost a band and therefore can not be positively identified. To catch a specific bird is a difficult task and one that we failed in.  Although the bird was seen near a net it didn't oblige by going in. If it is the bird I suspect it to be it would be the oldest Tui we have records of.

We did manage to catch 5 unbanded Tui as well as a Blackbird, a House Sparrow and the last bird of the day was a colour banded Kaka which we managed to get out of the net without losing any fingers. This is almost certainly a bird from Zealandia.  We also had a Bellbird bounce which would have been a good catch but not this time.

One of the Tui had several small white flecks around one eye, not sure if these were small feathers or some small beasties. Took a photo with my little camera but unfortunately the quality is not good enough to resolve the issue.

Tui with small white flecks around outside of one eye

Houghton Bay - Saturday 25 August

Ros and I had a session at the Houghton Bay stream this morning with reasonable success. In all we caught 56 birds but there wasn't much variety with only 3 species.

First bird caught was a female Blackbird  which had an unusual tail pattern with the entire tail covered with small bars/lines. These did not appear to be growth bars as they were very even and spread down the length of the feathers.

The Blackbird's tail with the bars unfortunately not showing very well in the photo

Next bird caught was a female Chaffinch and all the rest were Silvereyes, with 50 new birds and 4 recaptures. Only 1 of the recaps was banded at this site with 1 from my place banded in July 2011, 1 from the Gully below my house and 1 from Bridie's just down the road. Interestingly only 1 of the over 2000 Silvereyes that have been banded at the Houghton Bay stream since we started banding there in Jan 2008 have been recaptured.

One of the Silvereyes appeared to be going through at least a partial tail moult which is odd for this time of year.

Silvereye tail with retained central feathers and moulted outer ones

Hornsey Road - Friday 24 August

I put up a couple of nets in the morning to see what was about and then in the afternoon operated the trap at Bridie's for a couple of hours. Didn't catch a lot of birds but did have a bit of variety. Caught a total of 9 birds of 5 species, 2 recap Blackbirds, 2 new and 1 recap Starling, 2 recap Greenfinch, 1 recap Dunnock and a recap Sparrow. No Silvereye were caught. Almost all of the Silvereyes left the area about 3 weeks ago, which is the same time as they left last year, so we will wait and see if they return mid October as happened last year.