We had a session at The Quarry this morning, not a huge catch but up to expectations. We set the nets under some old pear trees which had ripe fruit. Caught a total of 18 birds with 16 new and 2 recaptures. The new birds were 5 Blackbirds, 5 Silvereyes, 4 House Sparrows and a couple of Dunnocks. Had hoped to catch a couple of the Bellbirds that were in the area but were unsuccessful. The two recaptures were the most interesting. A Blackbird that was banded in June 2018 was, at 1056 days, for a short time the oldest of any species we have caught at the Quarry. Then we caught a Silvereye that had been banded in Jan 2018 and is, at 1169 days from banding, now the oldest recap of any species. It was originally banded in the Conservation Area at the western end of the Quarry. It has been recaptured twice before today. Firstly at the Arbutus tree in May 2020 about 100m from today's site then it was back in the Conservation Area in June 2020.
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Most of today's Crew. Back - Ruud, Archie, Chris,
Front Jan, Ririka and Kenny. |
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Babs (Barbara) who has handled the rare Black Robin with her first Blackbird
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We had a couple of new people join us, Chris and Archie, both are Level 3 banders and gave our team a lot of very useful tips and alternative techniques. I especially found the exchange of information and ideas very valuable.
Although we haven't done much banding in the last few weeks we haven't been completely idle. The erection of 10 Little Owl nest boxes was an interesting task. We will have to wait at least a few months to see if they are successful.
