A New Banding Site At the Styx River

 Under the Guidance of Anita and Phil a new banding site has been created at the Styx Living Laboratory Trust field Centre at 75 Lower Styx Road. Anita as well as being the Regional Rep of Canterbury Birds NZ is the manager of this Field Centre. Phil is a Ranger with the CH-Ch City Council and as a L3 bander/trainer for Passerines is able to train trainees in the dark arts of the process. The hope is that enough suitable people can be trained to enable transfer of suitable species into relevant habitat in the city.

A couple of trial sessions have been held and now with some improvements in net site selection and pre feeding this site is proving to be a good one.

A total of 36 birds were caught, 35 new banded and 1 banded bird recaptured. The species caught were 1 Song Thrush, 1 Dunnock, 2 Chaffinch, 3 Greenfinch, 12 Silvereyes plus a recap and 16 House Sparrows. There were also a number of other species seen near the nets including, Bellbird, Grey Warbler, Fantail, Blackbird and a Shining Cuckoo was heard but unfortunately not by me so I can't tick off my first for the year.

I have attached a few photos of the day's activities Taken by Anita.

Not much Banding But some interesting Recoveries

 For a variety of reasons, I have done very little banding over the last few weeks, but we have nevertheless had some interesting birds. Both alive and dead. Here is a summary of some of what I think is the most interesting.

AP-27099 A Silvereye that was banded at our Cashmere Rd site on 30 June 2022 and recaptured there a month later. On 27 August 2024 it was caught by a cat in Milton Rd, Mt Eden, Auckland. It was taken to a Vet but later died. This is a minimum distance of approx. 800km but of course it would have travelled much further. This is possibly the longest distance recorded by a Silvereye moving in New Zealand.

L-49538 A Swamp Harrier That was also banded at our Cashmere Rd site. Banded on 19 April 2024 and found dead on the side of a road just outside Hastings on 25 May 2024 after probably being involved in a collision with a vehicle. It had travelled a distance of at least 541km in 38days including of course a crossing of Cook Strait. It averaged at least 15km per day.

L-49131 Another Harrier, banded at Motukarara on 11 June 2023 and found near dead on the Main Road of the Township of Oxford on 19 May 2024 58km away.  I doubt if a Harrier would normally be on the road in the middle of Oxford and suspect that it had been hit by a truck and tangled up in the grill dropping out when the truck slowed down. 

Phil has had several banding sessions at his place in Motukarara and is starting to get some interesting recaptures. Including a Song Thrush banded 30 Dec 2020 recaptured 5 Sept 24 after 1345 days

Also, a couple of recoveries

Starling banded 21 Nov 2019 found dead 4 Sept 2024 after 1749 days. And a House Sparrow Banded 25 Jan 2019, found dead 4 Sept 2024 after 2048 days.

H

 

 on

Harrier Banding 5 June and some other Harrier news.

 On Wednesday my 2 brothers and I had a Harrier banding session in the Lakeside area. Although it was a relatively short session it was pretty successful. We caught 10 new birds and made 5 recaptures of birds already banded. Two birds were caught twice and perhaps are slow learners. The number of new birds was a big surprise as this area has been regularly trapped over the last few years. Although most of them were young birds, there were also several older ones.

An old male caught for the first time with grey primary's

And the pale-yellow eye of an old bird

I think it probable that there has been an influx of birds into the area in the last few weeks. The oldest recap was banded 700 days ago on our second banding session.

As it was 700 days ago with the brown eye of a young bird

Now it has the pale-yellow eye of an older girl.

A Distant Recovery

I received an e-mail from the Banding Office a week or so ago reporting the recovery of one of our banded Harriers. It was found dead on the side of a road near Hastings on the East Coast of the North Island. Initially my thoughts were one of almost disbelief as almost all our recoveries are within 5km of the banding site with the furthest being 14km. This one is 541 km in a straight line and no doubt the bird flew a lot further. It also had to cover some pretty rugged country and cross Cook Strait. It had been banded on 19 April 24 just 38 days before its death. I estimate that it had averaged about 15 km a day from banding to its demise.

The itinerant bird at banding was a young male.

I also recently received a photo of a banded bird asking if it was one of ours. It obviously wasn't as our colour bands are White on Red this one was Black on White. It bad been found near Cheviot in North Canterbury and I have discovered it had been banded in Molesworth.

The Molesworth bird with its Black on White band.

 

Halswell Quarry 17 May and a Harrier update

 After quite a time gap we had a session at the Quarry on Friday morning. Although the catch was small there were still a few interesting birds. The nets were set around a fruiting Arbutus tree laden with fruit. It has been a few years since we last attempted to catch birds around this tree. In the meantime, it has grown considerably bigger especially in height meaning that birds mostly flew over the nets, carrying fruit in their beaks well above the nets. All a bit frustrating.

We caught 9 birds in all; 2 recaptures, a Chaffinch and a Blackbird. Also 7 new consisting of 2 Blackbirds, 2 Silvereye and one each of House Sparrow, Dunnock and the star of the day a Kingfisher. Only the second to be caught at the Quarry in the 7 years we have been banding there. We have banded about 30 Kingfisher puli during this time but only 2 non banded birds have made it into a net.

Della proudly displaying her Kingfisher.

The Pointy end

About to be released.

The Chaffinch was banded 25 May 2018 and at 2184 days from banding is now our oldest recap of any species.

Recent Harrier Banding

In the last month or so we have banded about 30 Harriers and made 18 recaptures. Most of the birds have been caught in the Lakeside area with others at our Cashmere Rd site and at Motukarara where Phil continues to catch new birds regularly. All the recaptures have been made in a relatively short distance of their original banding site. One recap of particular interest was the third bird in this project to be colour banded, just on two years after being banded.

The Bands

The bird as a 2yr old with eyes going yellow

The Brown Eye when originally banded.

One of the recaptured birds had a leg that had obviously been broken and had healed crooked.

The broken leg, nearest camera.

 

 

A good days Harrier Banding.

 On Monday 25 March my twin brothers and I set traps to catch Harriers. Well actually one set the traps while we other two took a leisurely drive out to the Country. The first round of the traps was a little disappointing with a new bird and a Recap. After a coffee break thing picked up and we ended the day with 10 new birds banded and 4 recaptures. One of the recaps was only banded in the morning and then caught again in the afternoon in the same trap. Must be a bit of a slow learner.

The twins with one of the birds.

 The other three were a bit more interesting. One had been banded 29 May 20 23, 301 days before. The other two were banded in 2022, one on 6 July making it 628 days ago, and the other on 28 May, at 667 days. One of these birds has interesting eye markings with black lines at the bottom of each eye. This was noticed when it was originally captured and I had thought that with time they would fade, but they are still there with little noticeable change. I calculate that she was at least 3 years old when originally banded and now is at least in her 5th year so it looks likely that the eyes will remain with this feature.

25 Mar 24 (in body moult)

6 July 22 first time caught.

Amongst the new birds looks like an old male. It is like a lot of old males getting a bit pale in places.

Very white below.

It has a pale-yellow eye of an old bird.

We place traps on a number of properties and all the landowners are very supportive of our activities. Frequently stopping bye to catch up on the latest captures.  

A Rap of recent banding attempts.

 There has been a limited amount of banding in recent weeks with birds mostly feeding on the large amount of food available and not yet flocking to any extent. Harriers have only returned to this part of the country in any number in the last few weeks.

On Friday we had a session at the Halswell Quarry at what is usually a reliable site but only managed to band 7 birds. Three each of Dunnock and Chaffinch, and a solitary Silvereye. All were new and most were young birds.

Flight a relatively new bander looking happy with the first bird of the day.

Looking even happier with two birds.

 A couple of weeks ago we had an attempt to trap Harriers with only limited success. Three birds were caught 2 new and a recapture. The low rate of capture is I think at least partly my fault with the trap orientation being wrong and several birds failing to find the entrance funnel.

The three birds for the day all young females.

We have also banded 7 Spotted Shags that have been in rehab at the South Is. Wildlife Hospital. This is the largest number they have managed to rehabilitate. This is due to the dedication of Pauline the Manager and Senior Vet at the Hospital.

Pauline in control of the bitey bit.

Some recent banding and some failures.

 We haven't had any major banding sessions so far this year but have nevertheless banded a few birds.

About 10 days ago Ruud and I banded 3 Kingfisher puli in a nest at Living Springs near Governers Bay. This is at least a month later than we have banded nestling Kingfishers before.

Last Thursday Ruud and I went to the South Island Wildlife Hospital at Willowbank to band some rehabilitated birds before their release.  We banded 7 Little Owls and 4 Kingfishers. Most of the birds of both species seemed to have received their injuries from either having an accident on a road or flying into a window. The exception to this was two juvenile Little Owls that had been blown out of their tree.

Pauline the Vet and Manager at the Hospital banding one of the Kingfishers.

Ruud banding one of the Little Owls.

I recently banded a juvenile Black-fronted Tern that had been raised from a very small chick. It had been picked up in the Waimakariri Riverbed by a well-meaning man, who, because there was no sign of its parents taken it home. He ignored advice from DOC to return it and it eventually ended up with Jackie a bird rescue lady who raised it on whitebait until it was ready to fly. It was then taken to Orana Park and put into a flight aviary, which is where I banded it. A few days later it was released on the Ashley River in an area where there was a flock of Black-fronted Terns, including other juveniles. Despite the fact that it was habituated to humans the release appears to have been successful.

The bird the day after its release when it was roosting with its compatriots.

Its first flight doing a circuit of the area.

Showing off its bands.

Freshly banded.

A few days ago a photo was attached to an E Bird report of a Little Owl with a metal leg band. The photo was taken near Rangiora at a site where we had banded a brood of Little Owls and it is almost certainly one of these youngsters. It is good to know that it is surviving and interesting that it has not moved far from home. 

Unfortunately can't read the number but the band is definitely there.

 

Over the last few weeks we have made several attempts to catch and band Harriers. These have had only limited success with only three birds banded.  Two were at Phil's place at Motukarara and the other out at Lakeside.  

The last Harrier we have banded. A young female.