Banding for year 2012/13 - A round up

It was an average years banding in the year 1 April 12 to 31 March 13 which is the DOC Banding Office banding year. In all for the year we banded 2993 birds of 16 species which is slightly above the 8 year average and slightly below the 5 year average. Below are numbers caught for the 8 years since the Banding Office altered the year to run from April to March.  The last 4 years show the ranking for each species.

New birds banded

	05/06	06/07	07/08	08/09	09/10		10/11		11/12		12/13		8yr Av
Silvereye	1190	853	1759	1403	1156	1	1934	1	1341	1	1063	1	1337
H Sparrow	353	295	517	495	474	2	698	3	620	2	905	2	545
Greenfinch	163	280	518	266	261	3	710	2	211	3	197	3	326
Chaffinch	99	99	163	109	110	5	161	5	195	4	175	4	139
Blackbird	108	119	124	185	133	4	123	6	174	5	151	5	140
Goldfinch	16	26	62	36	61	8	39	12	43	9	140	6	53
Starling	64	80	166	56	91	6	76	8	73	6	91	7	87
Tui	10	54	86	73	71	7	67	9	57	7	71	8	61
Dunnock	27	44	41	46	44	11	56	10	37	10	65	9	45
Fantail	42	57	58	31	46	10	78	7	30	11	60	10	50
Grey Warbler	13	17	12	20	21	12	41	13	49	8	39	11	27
Yellowhammer	23	7	13	14	56	9	162	4	20	12	27	12	40
Song Thrush	7	3	6	2	7	14	7	14	1	15	5	13	5
E Rosella	0	0	0	0	1	15	0	16	1	16	2	14	1
Kingfisher	4	3	3	3	0	16	1	15	2	13	1	15	2
Redpoll	1	5	4	0	15	13	42	11	1	14	1	16	9
Magpie	0	1	0	1	0	17	0	17	0	17	0	17	0
Bellbird				1	0	18	0	18	0	18	0	18	0
	2120	1943	3532	2741	2547		4195		2855		2993		2866

 Recaptures

The number of each species that were recaptured in each of the last 3 years. This number includes, in many cases, the multiple recaps of the same bird.

ReCaps	10/11	11/12	12/13
Silvereye	1128	571	621
House Sparrow	73	82	148
Blackbird	81	55	71
Greenfinch	172	93	55
Chaffinch	25	33	23
Starling	15	30	23
Dunnock	21	6	13
Grey Warbler	4	13	13
Tui	10	8	10
Fantail	31	10	7
Goldfinch	0	4	3
Song Thrush	0	0	1
Kaka	0	1	1
Yellowhammer	4	0	0
	1564	906	989

Species caught in the 12/13 year

Species are ranked according to the number of new birds banded (recaps are in brackets)

No 1 Silvereye - 1063 (621) Has been the No 1 species each year but this year's numbers are well below the average with a big drop at several sites.

No 2 House Sparrow - 905 (148) Usually at No 2 and well above the average with a very big breeding season and large numbers of juvenile birds caught.

No 3 Greenfinch - 197 (55) our lowest tally for 7 years. The drop in numbers was evident at all our sites so there appeared to be fewer Greenfinch around the city. This species is usually at 3rd but has been ahead of Sparrows in a couple of years. 

No 4 Chaffinch - 175 (23) usually at 4 or 5 on the list and slightly above average.

No 5 Blackbird - 151 (71) also slightly up on the average.

No 6 Goldfinch - 140 (3) the big mover for the year and by far our highest tally. A large number of juveniles were caught at our stream sites and these will hopefully show up in the recapture figures over the next 5 years or so.

No 7 Starling - 91 (23) pretty close to the average for new birds but a very good recapture rate.

No 8 Tui - 71 (10) with the exception of 07/08 when we targeted Tui one of our highest tallies.

No 9 Dunnock - (13) after a big drop in numbers last year well above the average.

No 10 Fantail - 60 (10) above average but numbers fluctuate a lot depending on the winter survival.

No 11 Grey Warbler - 39 (11) lower than last year but still above the average.

No 12 Yellowhammer - 27 (0) another species that fluctuates a lot with catches fluctuating depending on where they feed during the winter and the catch ability of the site.  It was a bit disappointing not to get any recaps.

No 13 Song Thrush - 5 (1) 

No 14 Eastern Rosella - 2 (0) a bycatch at the Karori Cemetery site but we did have 2 bounce at other sites. I expect this species to feature more in the future.

No 15 Kingfisher - 1 (0) a bird caught on the last banding day of the year.

No 16 Redpoll - 1 (0) a large flock fed at MacAlister Park last winter but we were unable to catch any.

Old Birds

The oldest bird recaptured or recovered for each species. Species in red are from this last year.

	Band No	Species	Days	Est Age
D	71970	Blackbird	4021	12yr 0mth
A	135040	Silvereye	3817	10yr 9mth
D	185240	Starling	3107	13yr 2mth
Y	185226	Tui	3001	9yr 8mth
B	96619	House Sparrow	2773	8yr 0mth
A	104329	Chaffinch	2574	8yr 0mth
A	168383	Greenfinch	1956	5yr 3mth
AA	4172	Grey Warbler	1519	4yr 4mth
A	153123	Goldfinch	1428	4yr 5mth
A	167973	Dunnock	1413	4yr 0mth
AX	1919	Fantail Pied	1176	3yr 3mth
A	104139	Yellowhammer	1114	3yr 6mth

The number of birds that were recaptured or recovered that were over 5 years from banding for the last 2 years.

Over 5 yr	11/12	12/13
Silvereye	16	13
Starling	2	9
Tui	2	6
Blackbird	2	5
Chaffinch	1	2
Greenfinch	0	2
House Sparrow	1	1
	24	38

It is good to see that several species have had a substantial increase in the oldest bird category and also an increase in the number of birds caught over 5 years from banding.

Birds recovered dead for the last 3 years

Recoveries	10/11	11/12	12/13
Silvereye	14	5	11
Blackbird	4	6	8
House Sparrow	11	20	7
Starling	2	2	6
Tui	6	6	2
Chaffinch	2	1	1
Dunnock	2	0	1
Greenfinch	9	5	1
Grey Warbler	0	0	1
Fantail	1	0	0
Goldfinch	2	1	0
	53	46	38

I had a quick look at the cause of death for birds this year and by far the majority were cause unknown including 1 that was reported as "having just fallen out of its tree". 1 was killed in a rat trap, 2 from the Zoo were killed by Otters, 3 hit windows, 5 were killed in road accidents and 9 reportedly were killed by cats.

Prince of Wales Park - Saturday 30 March

Matu held a banding session this morning at the Prince of Wales Park and had reasonable success. Not a big number of birds but a steady flow which was good as we used it to also train and refresh Ruby, Bernard and Ben who work at Zealandia, in banding and handling birds. In all we caught 50 birds of 9 species, only 1 was a recapture but this is the first recap at this new site.

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 1
Chaffinch - 1 (1) the recap was banded about 5 weeks ago at our last session there.
Greenfinch - 2
Goldfinch - 14

Ruby, Ben and Bernard with 3 Goldfinch, all 1st year birds but at different stages of moult

House Sparrow - 2
Dunnock - 2
Grey Warbler - 3

Ruby with her first Grey Warbler just out of the net

And now it's banded

Fantail - 2
Silvereye - 10
Kingfisher - 1 This is the first Kingfisher we have caught in this banding year which finishes tomorrow so only just makes it into the stats for the year.

The first and only Kingfisher for the year.

Houghton Bay 26 March - Escape from the Jury

I am doing Jury service this week but this morning's court case was cancelled so I was given the afternoon off. So instead of sitting in a court room I spent a couple of hours at the Houghton Bay stream. There was a steady flow of birds into the nets and I ended up with a tally of 40 of 8 species with 36 new and 4 recaptures.

Species caught were -
Chaffinch - 1 (0)
Goldfinch - 3 (0)
Greenfinch - 1 (0)
Silvereye - 23 (3) the oldest recap was banded in March 2011

One of the Silvereyes had a very prominent growth bar across its tail

House Sparrow - 2 (0)
Grey Warbler - 3 (1)
Fantail - 1 (0)
Tui - 2 (0)

Bridie's 25 March

I was also released from Jury service early yesterday so set the trap down the road at Bridie's for an hour or so in the afternoon. Caught 12 birds, all House Sparrows with 7 new and 5 recaps, the oldest recap was also banded in March 2011.

One bird had a very long top mandible but must be managing all right as it has almost finished its moult and had an above average weight of 32.5g.

The long billed Sparrow

Island Bay 23 March - Lots of Sparrows & a new species

Ros and I had a busy morning at Island Bay catching 95 birds of 8 species with 88 new and 7 recaptures. The highlight of the morning was a single bird of a new species for the site, a juvenile Redpoll. We have been banding there since Feb 2007 and as far as I know this is the first Redpoll seen there let alone caught.

Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 1 (3) the new bird had a wing length of 140 mm which is the longest we have recorded with the previous being 137 mm. The bird has finished its primary moult so was aged as a 2+.

The wing of the long winged Blackbird

One of the recaps banded as a spotty youngster a couple of months ago and now nearly finished its body moult

Dunnock - 3 (0)
Chaffinch - 3 (0)
Redpoll - 1 (0) Redpolls are regular Winter visitors to Wellington City, feeding on annual, winter seeding grasses on playing fields but are rarely seen over Summer and Autumn  We haven't caught one at the Zoo in the 12 years we have been banding there.

The Redpoll about to go on its way.

House Sparrow - 77 (4) still a huge number of Sparrows at this site with some recently fledged. Two of the recaps were banded recently and the other two last year.

Male Sparrows show a wide range of moulting

Grey Warbler - 1 (0)
Fantail - 1 (0)
Silvereye - 1 (0)

As usual we were treated to great hospitality including a delicious morning tea (actually coffee)

The morning tea spread.