Houghton Bay Stream 17-18 Sept

I spent an hour at the Houghton Bay stream yesterday, mainly to sort out a new net lane. I put up a couple of nets and caught a few birds while I was there. 1 Silvereye, 1 Chaffinch, 1 House Sparrow and 2 Tui.

I went back this morning as the predicted rain had not arrived. Caught 21 birds of 6 species with 18 new and 3 recaptures.
Species caught were -
Blackbird - 1 (0) The bird was a female breaking a run of 12 males in a row.
Greenfinch - 0 (1) a bird banded here at Hornsey Rd last week.
House Sparrow - 1 (0)
Silvereye - 12 (2) a couple of the new birds were moulting their outer primaries.

One of the Silvereye that were moulting outer primary feathers

One of the recaps had a large unhealthy looking lump where its hind claw should be. There is no record of anything wrong when it was banded in April 2011. It still seemed in reasonable health with a weight  of 12.6 gr which is about average.

"The lump"

Grey Warbler - 2 (0)
Tui - 2 (0) So far this year we have banded 24 Tui at this site. Last year we banded 13, in 2012 we banded 13, 2011 it was 8, in 2010 it was 10 and in both 08 & 07 we banded 7. There has certainly been an increase but whether this years big number is an aberration or not we will have to wait and see.

Wellington Zoo Saturday 13 Sept - A steady day

After a dire forecast we had surprisingly good conditions for our Zoo session on Saturday. It was mostly overcast with an occasional hint of rain but at times a bit much wind. There was a good turn out of people and it was great to have a number of enthusiastic younger folk.
Annette and Nikki took the opportunity to practice putting on and taking off radio transmitters in preparation for a planned study with North Island Robins.

Annette & Nikki putting a transmitter on a Greenfinch

After a rather slow start bird numbers increased and we ended up with 50, 41 new birds and 9 recaptures. There were 11 species caught so there was a bit of variety but many species were only represented by single birds. Surprisingly no Silvereyes were caught.

Species caught were - (Recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 1 (0) we also had a recovery reported by a Zoo Keeper of a dead Blackbird, it was banded in April 2012.
Song Thrush - 0 (1) our first recap for a couple of years and only the second in the last 5.
Dunnock - 2 (2) one of the recaps was banded June 2010 and is at 1526 days not only the oldest Dunnock we have recaptured at the Zoo but the oldest at any of our sites.

The old Dunnock

Chaffinch - 1 (0)
Goldfinch - 1 (0)
Greenfinch - 26 (5)

A photo of Ross taking a photo of Kate with a Greenfinch

House Sparrow - 5 (1)
Starling - 1 (0)
Fantail - 1 (0)
Tui - 2 (0)
Magpie - 1 (0) the first one caught at the Zoo since 2004.

The first magpie caught at the Zoo for 10 years

There is equipment on site ready to commence work on Monday on an exciting new development at the Zoo. This will impact on several of our net sites so banding sessions for the next year or so are likely to follow a slightly different format.

Machinery, big and small ready to start work Monday

Houghton Bay 10 Sept

I had another morning session at the Houghton Bay stream today. The catch was about half of last week's mostly due to a drop in Silvereye numbers. Caught 32 birds of 7 species so at least had a bit of variety, there were 29 new and 3 recaps.

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 3 (1) again all males which makes it 10 males to 0 females in the last week. The recap was banded April 2011.
Chaffinch - 2 (0)
Greenfinch - 4 (1)
Goldfinch - 1 (0)
House Sparrow - 1 (0)
Grey Warbler - 0 (1) the first bird caught, it was banded April 2013

The Grey Warbler aged as a 1 with a brown eye now has the red eye of an adult

Silvereye - 15 (0) a big drop from the 52 caught last week and surprisingly no recaps.
Tui - 3 (0)

Houghton Bay 4 Sept - A better day

I spent the morning at the Houghton Bay stream and it was a much busier day than Monday was. Caught a total of 63 birds of 6 species, with all but 4 being new.
Species caught were -
Blackbird - 6 all were male.
Chaffinch - 2

The first Chaffinch caught, a female appeared to have a paler colouration than usual, or perhaps it was the light or my eyesight? 

Goldfinch - 1
Greenfinch - 3
Silvereye - 48 (4) much more like the number expected. 2 of the recaps were banded at Hornsey Rd, 1 here at my place and the other down the road at Bridie's. Several of the birds were moulting their outer primaries, the first ones we have found this spring.

A couple of the Silvereye that were moulting outer primaries.

 Grey Warbler - 2
Tui - 3

Houghton Bay 2 Sept - Tui

I spent a couple of hours at the Houghton Bay stream this afternoon. Didn't catch a lot of birds, just 14 of 5 species with 11 new and 3 recaps. There were 2 species that were significant; only 4 Silvereye, 3 new and 1 recap an extremely low number for this site. 6 Tui were caught which is the highest number ever caught there in one session. One of the Tui was a recap banded at Island bay almost 2 years ago, Sept 2012.

With handling so many Tui I had a bad case of "Tui" finger especially after banding 3 big males in a row.
(All the blood is mine)

Other birds were 1 House Sparrow, 2 Grey Warbler and a recap Dunnock which although not very old at 2 years from banding is still the oldest recap at this site.

The Dunnock

Tiritiri Matangi Thursday 28 August - Rifleman

I have been in Auckland for the last week so haven't been doing any banding around Wellington. However I was fortunate to go out to Tiritiri Matangi Is yesterday with John, a UK trained and very experienced bander (ringer). We joined up with Simon and his team who were doing a survey of Rifleman and catching and colour banding juveniles.  Rifleman have been introduced onto the Island over the last few years and are slowly starting to colonise various parts of the bush. John is the current chairman of the Tiritiri Matangi Is Trust and Simon is a former chairman.

I accompanied John and his wife Kay for a period to survey a particular patch of bush. With the aid of an audio lure were able to locate several birds. A mist net was then set up and with a speaker on each side an attempt was made to lure birds down and into the net. During the period I was there 3 were caught, 2 of which were already colour banded but the other was an unbanded male. We had been hoping for an unbanded female which had been seen in the area so this male was a pleasant surprise.


One of the already colour banded birds

The new bird getting its first bit of bling

A nice bit of colour added

Wing measurement taken before release

There were still at least 2 unbanded birds in the area but unfortunately I had to leave to catch the ferry. Hopefully John and Kay were successful after I departed.

On my way back to the ferry I saw the biggest Weta I have ever seen, it was humongous.

The Giant Weta, sorry about the photo quality but it gives an idea of size.

I will be back in Welly early next week so hopefully will be able to get some banding done after that.

Houghton Bay revisited - 18 August

I had another session at the Houghton Bay stream this afternoon. I was late getting there so was about an hour late in setting up, which I think affected the catch as the majority of birds were caught in the first half hour. Kate and Mary arrived just after the initial rush was over so didn't get to process many birds.

The catch was 22 birds with 18 Silvereyes, 1 Tui, 1 Chaffinch, 1 Grey Warbler all new and a Fantail recap. So it was much quieter than yesterday morning.