A rehab Harrier is released and a bunch of Silvereyes captured.

 On Saturday 17th I was invited to the release of a Harrier that had been injured and was being released back into the wild. It had obviously been feeding on a road killed Hare along with another Harrier on Bealey Rd near Aylesbury when they were struck by a vehicle. The other bird was killed and this one was injured and eventually taken to the NZ Raptor Trust's Hospital in Timaru. After several weeks of TLC from Jenni and Angie and their team he was now fit to be released.

The injured Harrier was initially found by a passing motorist then a local woman came along and assisted but the bird had scramble through a fence and they were unable to catch it and had to wait for her son to come home from school to catch it.

As well as being an observer I was invited along to supervise the banding of this bird. This is done so hopefully information of his survival can be gathered. He was released on a very quiet road near where he was originally found. There were two bands put on him, a metal DOC one with a unique number and a return address to the DOC Banding Office in Wellington on the right leg. On the left leg a Colour band with a 3 digit number. This band was Red with White numbers, which is the colour combination of a Harrier banded in Canterbury. 

The Bands. The DOC one on right leg and Canterbury coloured one on left

The big moment of take off.

Darren the father of the brave lad that caught the injured bird ready for release.
His son is in the background

People gathering for the release.

Angie from The NZ Raptor Trust banding the bird and Tracy who assisted in the bird's capture holding it.

Banding at Jan's last Thursday

We had a successful session at Jan's place on Kennedys Bush Rd on Thursday. Just a small team of Jan, Andrew and myself so we only set up two nets, a 4m and a 9m but this produced a steady flow of birds. There was not much variety with all being Silvereyes except for 2, a House Sparrow and a Bellbird. There were 26 new Silvereyes and 8 recaptures. There were some interesting birds amongst the recaps with 3 originally banded in 2019, 2 on the 1st of August and 1 on the 27th of June. This bird is now the oldest Silvereye we have recaptured. Another bird was originally banded here 11 June 2020 then recaptured at our Cashmere Rd site 28 July last year and now it is back at Jan's.

One of the old Silvereyes

Andrew with the Bellbird, a rarely caught female.

 

More Harrier Banding, Recaptures and a Recovery

 We have continued to be successful with our Harrier trapping and banding. We moved some traps from out in the country to be nearer Christchurch on a farm on Cashmere Rd. We had the traps set there for about a week last winter and were happy with 3 birds caught. This time with actual trapping time restricted by wet weather we banded 10 new birds and recaptured 3. Two of the recaps had been banded recently but the other was 1 of the 3 from last year. This bird is now our oldest recapture being just short of a year. Part of the purpose of this study is to follow the changes in eye colour as a bird ages. They have dark brown eyes when first fledged, this changes to a pale yellow in an old bird.

Ruud holding one of the new Cashmere birds. A youngster with a dark brown eye. .

Kenny holding the first Harrier he has banded. An old female with a pale
yellow eye.

The recap showing a paler eye

The darker brown eye of a year ago.

There have also been birds caught at our Motukarara site. Three new and four recaptures, the oldest recap was banded back in February.

We have also had an interesting recovery reported. A banded bird was found in a winter feed crop on Milltown Rd about 2km from where it was banded. It was in very poor condition, very light and unable to stand, it died shortly after being found. It had obviously been there for a considerable time having trampled down an area of crop It is presumed that the bird had dropped into the foliage after prey and had been unable to fly out this would have been accentuated by everything being wet including its plumage.

The unfortunate bird as it was found.