Stream mist netting - 8 & 9 Feb

I have had 2 short banding sessions at streams in the last couple of days with contrasting success and neither session resulting in large numbers.

Houghton Bay - 8 Feb.

Spent a couple of hours at the Houghton Bay stream Friday afternoon. Managed to catch 42 birds with 40 new and 2 recaps. Both recaps were Silvereye - 1 from a couple of weeks ago and the other a year ago.

Other birds caught were - 

Dunnock - 1

Fantail - 2

Greenfinch - 6 one bird that at first glance looked like a juvenile female was moulting its primaries.

The juvenile looking female Greenfinch moulting primaries

Goldfinch - 4 - in sharp contrast to recent sessions all were adults

House Sparrow - 3

Silvereye - 24 (2)

Zoo Stream - 9 Feb

Went to the stream over the fence from the Zoo this morning and only caught 9 birds with only 1 being a recap.

Chaffinch - 4

Greenfinch - 2 plus a recap that was banded at Houghton Bay a couple of weeks ago.

Fantail - 1

Grey Warbler - 1

Prince of Wales Park, 2 Feb - A new site

Matu organised a session at the stream in the Prince of Wales Park today which proved very successful and shows a lot of promise for future sessions. It is relativity close to Zealandia and although we didn't catch any of their introduced birds we did have Kaka flying around with Bellbird heard and Whitehead have also been seen recently in the area.

Today we caught a total of 68 birds, all new. I had hoped that we might have got a recap from one of our other sites but no such luck.
Species caught were -
Blackbird - 1
Chaffinch - 6
Greenfinch - 10
Goldfinch - 38 this is the highest day's total at any site and all but 5 were juveniles.
Silvereye - 3
House Sparrow - 7
Yellowhammer - 1
Dunnock - 1
Tui - 1

The Council is doing some tree removal at this site this week which will undoubtedly affect it but hopefully won't make too much difference.

Zoo Stream, 1 February - More juveniles

Gen, Nick and I had a session at the Stream or what is left of it over the fence from the Zoo this afternoon. We also had Don the Manager of the DOC Banding Office join us for a period. The catching was surprisingly slow but this gave us a bit of time to talk a few things over with Don, which was good, and also to catch up with Gen and Nick as it is the first time I have seen them since they took over the ranger position on Kapiti Island.

We did manage to catch 30 birds with 29 new and only 1 recapture.  This was a Silvereye which was banded at the Houghton Valley School in May 2010. Other birds caught were 15 Goldfinch, 7 Chaffinch, 2 Greenfinch, 1 House Sparrow, 3 Silvereye and 1 Tui. With the exception of 3 of the Goldfinch and the Silvereye most of the birds were juveniles.

One of the juvenile Chaffinch had a very prominent growth bar.
 

Two of the Goldfinch caught together might have been Mother and Daughter

Zoo Stream 28 Jan. - Lots of Juveniles

I went to the little stream over the fence from the Zoo this morning for a couple of hours. There were a lot of birds about, mostly juvenile finches, and I put up 3 nets but had to foil one after about 15 minutes so I could cope with the numbers. In all I caught 50 birds of 7 species with 46 new and 4 recaptures.

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 1 (0)
Chaffinch - 12 (0) almost all juvs
Greenfinch - 8 (1) the recap was banded July 10 it, and 1 other bird, were the only adults - all the rest juvs.
Goldfinch - 15 (0) all were juvs.
Silvereye - 6 (3) the oldest recap was banded July 10, the other 2 in 2011
House Sparrow - 3 (0)
Fantail - 1 (0)

Two Silvereye and two Goldfinch waiting processing

Island Bay Wednesday 23 Jan - Lots of Sparrows

Annette, Ros, Tansy, Nikki and I had a successful mornings banding catching 122 birds with 107 new and 15 recaps. By far the majority were House Sparrows which was good for Tansy's training as they are similar in size and have the same size bands as the Black Robins she is hoping to band back in the Chatham Islands. She was able to band a good number and also practice putting on and removing colour bands.

Tansy practicing with colour bands.

  Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 8 (4) one of the recaps was banded on 8 Dec last year when it had a large head wound. It still has the wound but it is starting to show signs of healing. Hopefully we will catch it again to follow progress.

The wound 8 Dec 2012

The wound 23 Jan 2013

Chaffinch - 2 (0)
Dunnock - 3 (0)
Starling - 4 (0)
Silvereye - 1 (1) a bird banded June 2010
Grey Warbler - 1 (0)
Tui - 0 (1)
House Sparrow - 89 (9) the oldest recap was banded March 2010. Sparrows appear to have had a long and successful breeding with around 75% being juveniles.

Both this morning as well as on Monday we found a considerable number of the birds caught have started to moult, especially juvenile Sparrows but also Starling Silvereye and Blackbird.

Once again we had great hospitality from Marion and Ken including a very enjoyable morning snack.

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

A bit of banding and an old bird confirmed

Spent a couple of hours at the Houghton Bay stream yesterday (Friday). I didn't expect to catch much after heavy overnight rain but still caught 13 birds.
House Sparrow - 3 (0)
Greenfinch - 1 (1)
Goldfinch - 1 (0)
Silvereye - 4 (1) the recap was banded in 08 so a reasonably old bird.
Tui - 2 (0)

I have also done a bit of banding both here and down the road at Bridie's with not a lot of birds.
Blackbird - 2 (4)  the recaps included the old bird "White Eye" who was caught for the 19th time and at 3064 days is the oldest live Blackbird recapture at any site, but has a while to go to beat a couple of recoveries.
Dunnock - 1 (0)
Greenfinch - 1 (0)
House Sparrow - 5 (2)
Tui - 1 (0)

Called in at the Zoo a couple of days ago and spoke with Nathan who was the keeper who found the dead Blackbird mentioned in the last post. He confirmed that it had only been dead for 2-3 days.  It apparently has been around the Giraffe enclosure for some time and was very confiding and well known to the keepers working there. It was last seen about 4 days prior to the body being found and the comment was made that he wasn't looking very well. As it was banded as a Juvenile this makes it just over 11 years old at the time of its demise and at 4021 days our oldest bird recaptured or recovered of any species, surpassing the Silvereye that had held the record since Nov 2007 when it was recaptured after 3817 days having been banded in May 1997.

This is the last post for 2012 and I wish you all the best for the new year. The past year has been a good one for old birds with a new oldest bird overall as well as for Blackbird, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Starling and Tui. I am away for the next few weeks so there is unlikely to be any new postings till towards the end of January.