Houghton Bay 23 Oct. _ A couple of old birds

I spent a bit of time at the Houghton Bay stream this afternoon but I didn't expect to catch much as I had a look a few days ago and there appeared to be very few birds about. However I was wrong and I had a steady stream of birds into the nets. Caught 48 of 8 species with 38 new and 10 recaptures.

Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 1 (0)
Dunnock - 1 (0)
Chaffinch - 2 (2) the oldest recap was banded Jan 2011 as an unsexed juvenile, now a handsome male.
Greenfinch - 1 (0)
House Sparrow - 14 (0) a high number for this site.
Silvereye - 18 (7) 1 of the recaps was banded on 21 Jan 2008. Our first banding session at this site was 19 Jan 2008 and this bird is now at 2102 days our oldest Silvereye recapture there, (2 days short of the maximum). It was also the oldest bird of any species there for about 30 minutes, and then along came a Starling.
Starling - 0 (1) This bird was banded on 20 Jan 2008, the day before the Silvereye so at 2103 days not only our oldest Starling at this site but the oldest bird of any species recaptured there.
Grey Warbler - 1 (0)

Hornsey Rd 22 Oct - Silvereyes are Back

I have noticed that Silvereyes numbers have been increasing this last week after an almost complete absence since late July. This morning I set the funnel trap and caught 39 with 8 being new birds and 31 recaptures. Of the recaps 8 had been banded this year, 8 in 2012, 8 in 2011, 2 in 2010, 2 in 2009, 1 in 2008 and 2 in 2007 so a good range of ages. One of the 07 birds was 1 of the cohort of 100 we colour banded that year and appears to be the sole survivor, being the only one we have caught in the last couple of years, but I keep hoping more will turn up.

Possibly the last survivor of the colourful 100

An old Tui tracked down

I received a message yesterday about a colour banded Tui that had been seen and photographed in a Karori garden. Unfortunately one of the colour bands was missing with the bands being B/R-?/M.

 

This narrowed the possibilities down to the bird being one of six banded Tui. As two had been reported dead we were down to four possibilities. Michael, who had reported the bird, was able to identify some of the digits on the metal band including the prefix which was D, so this narrowed the search down to two possibilities. He was then able to identify a sequence of 3 digits being 811 so the band had to be D-181101 not D-185201.

This was a male banded at the Karori Plunket Rooms, Karori Rd on 25 May 2003 and is now at 3797 days from banding our oldest reported Tui. A special thanks to Michael who did some great detective work to identify this bird. Some more of his great photos can be seen on -  

http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaltrails/sets/72057594098897477

Back from my travels - reporting some recoveries

We have returned back to windy Wellington after our trip around Australia. I gather while we were away the city lived up to its reputation. Hopefully now I am home we will have some calmer weather suitable for mist netting.

Although I had promised that it was not going to be a birding trip I still managed to see some interesting birds, but was disappointed with the number of sea birds seen during our 17 days at sea. The most interesting ones being numerous flocks of white "sea" birds with black wings and tails flying rapidly just above the water. After scouring all the seabird pages of my reference book to no avail I came to the conclusion that they were actually pigeons making the journey from offshore islands to the mainland.

Torres Strait Pigeons skimming the waves

The nearest I came to any banding was to see an Australian Wood Duck sporting a band.

Banded Australian Wood Duck

While I was away we received recovery reports of 4 banded birds that had met their demise.
A silvereye recently banded at the Zoo was killed by a cat in a nearby street.
A starling banded at Bridie's on Hornsey Rd in Nov 2012 was recovered in the Lion enclosure at the Zoo.
A Dunnock banded at the Zoo, also in Nov 2012, was found dead in the Giraffe enclosure.
A colour banded Tui was found dead in Northland (a Wellington suburb), it had been banded at the Karori Cemetery in April 2008.

With favourable weather I hope to get some banding done in the next week or so.

Island Bay Saturday 21 Sept - Sparrows & Rain

I woke up to the sound of rain on the roof, then it stopped so headed off for our planned banding session at Island Bay. Unfortunately the rain started again as I arrived so spent an hour in the car before it cleared enough to put nets up at about 9. I had a reasonably busy time until reinforcements arrived in response to my texts and then, according to sods law, the flow of birds dried up.This was probably due to them having fed  to their hearts' content while I sat in the car. The rain recommenced after a couple of hours so we packed up early and headed home. We did manage to catch 33 birds of 4 species with 24 new and 9 recaps.

The "Team" Annette, Kate, Mary (our scribe), Ross, Kat, & Bronwyn

Birds caught were - Recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 1 (3)
Chaffinch - 1 (0)
House Sparrow - 21 (6)

Kate banding one of the Sparrows.

Starling - 1 (0)

We have had a couple of Blackbird recoveries reported from the Zoo. One was of a bird eaten by the Meerkats; not an old bird but interesting in a bizarre way. A European bird eaten by an African mammal on the other side of the world in New Zealand. The other bird was perhaps more significant as it was banded 3 August 2003 and at 3696 days is our second oldest Blackbird recovery at any site. Our oldest Blackbird recovery at 4024 days was also reported by Zoo staff which reinforces the fact that we are very fortunate to have them taking an interest in our banding and reporting the recoveries.

I am off to Australia for the next few weeks so there is unlikely to be any new posts for a while.

 

Houghton Bay Stream 18 Sept

We had a session at the Houghton Bay Stream today with Ros assisting this morning in an effort to check for Silvereye moult. This afternoon David, who is a school science teacher currently doing a fellowship at the Wellington Zoo came along to get some hands on experience with birds.It was a reasonably successful day with a  total of 68 birds of 7 species caught, 58 new and 10 recaptures.
Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 5 (1)
Chaffinch - 2 (1) the recap was banded at the Zoo stream in Jan 2012 as an unsexed Juv. It is now a very handsome male.
Greenfinch - 2 (1) the recap was banded here at Hornsey Rd a month ago.
Dunnock - 1 (0)
House Sparrow - 9 (1)

David banding his first Sparrow

Silvereye - 38 (6) the oldest recap was banded Nov 2010, another was banded at the Zoo July 2013 and 3 were banded at Hornsey Rd. Of the 44 Silvereyes caught 11 (25%) were found to be in moult.

Ros doing a moult card for one of the Silvereyes

Tui - 1 (0)

Bridie's Saturday 14 Sept. - An old bird

I set the funnel trap down the road at Bridie's this morning. Didn't catch a lot of birds, only 10 of 3 species.
Blackbird - 2 (2)
Greenfinch - 2 (1)
Starling - 2 (1)
All the recaps were recently banded birds except the Blackbird we know as "White Eye". He was caught for I think the 20th time since he was banded in August 2004 and continues at 3324 days from banding to be the oldest living Blackbird we have recaptured at any site. Our oldest recovery is over 4000 days so he still has a bit to go. He weighed in at near his fighting (actually his breeding) weight at 89.9g. His Spring/Summer weight is usually closer to 80g, with his Winter weight up just under 100g. He usually disappears in the Autumn so have not managed to weigh him then or to get a moult score.

Old White Eye - the pattern of white feathers does not appear to change  

I had to go over to Karori this afternoon and took the opportunity for a quick look around the cemetery banding site. Managed to see R/W-B/M also known as "White Tail" due to having a white feather in his tail. This feather makes identifying the bird much easier, especially as he is almost always in the same area. Banded in June 09 not one of our oldest birds but starting to get closer.

The white tail feather makes identification much easier especially with a red band and feeding in a red flowered gum.