Houghton Bay 21 January

Annette, Tansy and I had a banding session at the Houghton Bay stream this afternoon with a steady flow of birds. Tansy is a ranger on the Chatham Islands and is getting some additional experience to enable her to band Black Robins etc on the Islands.

In all we caught 54 birds of 8 species with 41 new and 13 recaptures.
Species caught were - (Recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 0 (0)
Chaffinch - 4 (1) the recap was banded on 27 Jan 08 4 days short of 5 years.
Greenfinch - 16 (1) all except 1 new and the recap were Juvs, Greenfinch appear to have had a good breeding season.
Goldfinch - 2 (0)
House Sparrow - 3 (0)
Fantail - 2 (0)

Tansy putting some 'bling' on a Fantail

Grey Warbler - 2 (0)
Silvereye - 12 (10) the oldest recap was banded Jan 08. In contrast to Greenfinch there appear to be very few juvenile Silvereye.

While away over the last few weeks I didn't do any banding and not a lot of birding but did manage when in Hawkes Bay for a family wedding to see the 3 Plumed Whistling Ducks that have been there for a period. This was the first time I have seen the species in NZ so was rather pleased to find them.

The three Australian visitors