Houghton Bay Sunday 17 August - heaps of Silvereye

We had a very successful banding session at the Houghton Bay stream this morning. I was joined by Sarah J, Kyle with Finn and Kyle's parents who are over from Canada for a visit.

Three generations, father Kyle, his father Ken and Grandson Finn (somewhere under the blue hat)

We caught a total of 81 birds of 8 species with 71 new and 10 recaptures.

Birds caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 3 (0)
Song Thrush - 1 (0) only the 4th caught at this site.
Dunnock - 1 (0)
Greenfinch 1 (0)
House Sparrow - 2 (0)
Grey Warbler - 1 (1)
Fantail - 1 (0)
Silvereye 61 (9) I think this is the biggest Silvereye total caught at any site this year. Of the recaps 1 was banded at the Zoo, 1 on Mt Albert and 2 here at Hornsey Rd.

One of the Silvereye had a very noticeable growth bar across its tail and also had a very poorly defined eye ring.

Hope to have another session tomorrow afternoon to compare birds AM v PM.

Island Bay Wednesday 13 August - Mostly Sparrows

Ros and I had a successful morning's banding on Wednesday morning catching, more than twice as many birds than at the session at this site last month.

Ros concentrating on extracting a male Sparrow; 1 of many.

We caught 65 birds of 4 species with 50 new and 15 recaptures. As is usual at this site the catch was dominated by House Sparrows with 46 new birds and 9 recaps. There was a big sex ratio difference in the Sparrows caught with 38 being male and only 17 female.
Other species were Blackbird 1 new, 4 recaps. Dunnock 2 recaps and Chaffinch 3 new birds, all male.

Chaffinch males are developing full breeding plumage and are singing full song   

A feature was the total lack of Silvereye with none seen or heard.  There were however a few Tui about but none found the nets although 3 were hooning about very close.  Not sure whether we wanted all 3 to go in or not? One at a time is usually enough.

Zoo Saturday 9 August - a better day.

Today was a more successful day at the Zoo than recent sessions have been. Despite a very cold start the weather improved and was good for mist netting for most of the day although surprisingly in the afternoon there was bright sun on several nets reducing the catch. There was a good group of banders including Ros, Sarah V H, Aditi (usually referred to as De), Roisin and Helen,

Sarah V H and De extracting birds, they both work in the "Nest" at the Zoo

 We were later joined for a couple of hours by Sarah J, Kyle and little Finn.

Finn was a bit sleepy  and not very interested in proceedings.

We caught a total of 69 birds of 10 species with 47 new and 22 recaptures. Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 1 (0)
Song Thrush - 1 (0)
Dunnock - 1 (2) the oldest recap was banded Dec 2011.
Chaffinch - 1 (0)
Greenfinch - 14 (3) the most we have caught for some time. One of the recaps was banded at Hornsey Rd.

Finn was not very interested in Mum's Greenfinch

House Sparrow - 4 (3)
Starling - 3 (0)
Kingfisher - 1 (0) the first one caught at the Zoo since June 2010.

The Kingfisher was aged as a 1

Silvereye - 18 (14) 2 of the recaps were banded in 201, 1 was subsequently caught at Houghton Bay and is now back at the Zoo. Another was banded on Mt Albert.
Tui - 3 (0)

Finn wasn't even interested in Dad's first Tui

Helen with her first Tui, a big male.

Houghton Bay 5 August - a few new birds.

I spent a couple of hours at the Houghton Bay stream this afternoon and caught 17 birds of 7 species - all new. Birds caught were Silvereye 7, Blackbird 3, Chaffinch 3 and 1 each of Dunnock, House Sparrow, Fantail and Tui. Most of the birds were caught in the first 45 minutes and then it went quiet, perhaps I was a bit late getting there.

Hornsey Rd Friday 1 August - Silvereyes depart

I set the funnel trap here this morning and my suspicions were confirmed. Most of the Silvereyes appear to have left the area, only catching 5, -  2 new and 3 recaps. Also caught a new Starling and recaptured a House Sparrow. For the last few years Silvereye have departed either the last week of July or the first one in August usually following mild weather with a northerly wind. I suspect they smell the sweet scent of flowering trees probably Karo which is common in parts of Wellington especially on the western side of Houghton valley.

So far this year I have banded 63 Silvereye here which will be, unless there is another influx of birds, the second lowest yearly total in the last 20 years. 1997 was the lowest with 54 banded. Last year 203 were banded and the highest total was in 2001 with 596.

Houghton Valley School Thursday 31 July - Very few birds

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon with kids from the Houghton Valley School. The aim is to give the children from the junior class a close look at a wild bird and show them how we band and handle them. The kids were great but we caught very few birds. Fortunately there were enough birds for each group to have a close look at one. A total of 5 birds were caught with 3 Silvereyes, 2 new and 1 recap and 1 new of Blackbird and Grey Warbler.

Silvereye numbers have dropped significantly with very few about. There also appears to have been a big drop in numbers here at my place as well. I will set the trap in the next day or so and see if this is real or just my imagination.

A group admiring a Silvereye that's about to be released

And its gone.

Another group

Karori Cemetery Saturday 26 July - a few Tui but not much else.

A group of us gathered at the Karori Cemetery on Saturday morning to see if we could catch a few birds esp. Tui. We haven't banded there before at this time of year so it was a bit of an experiment. A few were caught but not many so probably won't try again. The tally was 7, all new with 1 Chaffinch, 1 Song Thrush and 5 Tui, we caught 4 birds very soon after putting the first nets up but then there was nothing for a long period. We then caught a female Tui in one net and before we had that out 2 big males went into another. We also had a Kaka go into a net, fortunately it got out before any damage was done to either the net or fingers.

A Tui waits extraction, look at that claw ready to execute vengeance.

Another waits defiantly.

Felix & Rory hold bagged Tui while another is ready for release.