Island Bay 8 June - Only a few birds

A group of us attempted to catch birds this morning at our Island Bay site with very limited success.

The team waiting for some action which didn't really arrive.
Andrea (scribe) Ros, George & Sarah.

For a variety of reasons we hadn't been there for several months and I had expected a reasonable catch. But we only managed 17 birds of 3 species with 15 new and 2 recaps. Almost certainly the main cause of the poor result was a very late start with the majority of birds having fed and departed. The other possible factor was that a strong northerly wind developed affecting the nets and the birds flight path.
We caught 1 Blackbird.

The Blackbird, a first year male, had strong markings across its flight feathers

5 Dunnocks and a recap.

The Dunnock on the left was the recap a known age bird, a 2, the right one was aged as a 1

9 House Sparrows and 1 recap.

The only real highlight of the morning was the sighting of a colour banded Tui. It had been banded on 4 June 2007 so at 2926 days from banding is a reasonably old bird.

Newtown Park 6 June - A few more Yellowhammers

I had another attempt to catch Yellowhammers at the football field at Newtown Park this morning with a little more success. Midweek there had been over 500 feeding there but they must have consumed most of the available seed because by this morning numbers had dropped to about 100.

The football field viewed from the banding site.

I managed to catch 9, all new, and a bit disappointing not to have recaptured any of the 200 or so that have been banded there in the last 6 years. The only other bird caught was a Kingfisher which was a bit of a bonus.

The Kingfisher - note the fancy glove, it was a mere 3 degrees C 

A Bit of This and a Bit of That

I have set the Funnel Trap a couple of times here recently with limited success. Last Wednesday I caught 18 birds; all Silvereye with 9 new and 9 recaps. I set it again yesterday and again caught 18 birds; 15 Silvereye, 10 new and 5 recaps as well as 1 new Dunnock, Greenfinch and House Sparrow. A bit like I was worried that would happen to the Blackcaps (NZ's cricket team) - both sessions were stopped by rain.

A couple of Recoveries.

Yesterday I received two recovery reports from the Banding Office. One was a Blackbird that had been banded at our Island Bay site in Jan 2014 as a juvenile and recovered dead on the other side of the valley.

The other was a colour banded Tui found dead in Northland (a Wellington suburb). It had been banded at the Karori Cemetery in July 08. It was seen feeding on sugar water in Roseneath on the other side of the City in Nov & Dec 09. Subsequently it must have moved back across the city to where it was found. The owner of the property reports that it was resident there when they moved into the property back in February.

A file photo of a colour banded Tui, but not either of the ones mentioned

An Old Tui.

Although this is not one of ours I have had an interesting report from Ralph this morning about a resighting of a colour banded Tui. This was of a bird from a study he did in Southland in the early 1990's. It had been banded 16 Dec 2004, at 3817 days from banding it is about 3 weeks longer than our oldest Tui here in Wellington which is 3797 days from banding. We have a Blackbird that was longer at 4021 days and a Silvereye that was exactly the same, 3817 days. Ralph's Tui was originally fitted with a radio transmitter which hasn't appeared to have affected it's survival at all.   

Houghton Bay Saturday 30 May

I spent a couple of hours around midday at the Houghton Bay stream today. With rain appearing imminent when I left I had expected a small catch, if any. By the time I arrived the sky had cleared considerably and I had a much higher catch than expected. Ended up with 49 birds of 8 species with 42 new and 7 recaps. From 11 to noon the rate was relatively slow with only about a dozen birds caught but in the next hour I was pretty well stretched.
Species caught -
Blackbird - 2 (0)
Song Thrush - 1 (0) a relatively rare species at this site.
Chaffinch - 9 (1) the recap was banded in 2012
Goldfinch - 1 (0)
Greenfinch - 10 (1) the recap was banded at Bridie's in 2013
House Sparrow - 1 (0)
Silvereye - 17 (5) only 1 caught in first hour and then they arrived. Oldest was banded here at my place in 2013.
Fantail - 1 (0) plenty about but as usual they danced in front of or flitted around the net.

Newtown Park 28 May.

At the moment there are over 100 Yellowhammers feeding on the newly resown football field at Newtown Park. Last Thursday I attempted to catch some with very limited success. Since I last attempted this a couple of years ago there has been a great high fence built around the field. I am now unable to direct the birds towards the nets and had to rely on a pair of Magpies to herd the birds. In this they are quite good except they sent them in the wrong direction. Ended the morning with catching only 4 Yellowhammers plus a bonus catch of an Eastern Rosella. 

Wellington Zoo Sat 23 May - a big day

Our session at the Zoo on Saturday proved to be a busy one as we had near perfect conditions with full cloud cover and little wind. Fortunately we had a good team of experienced banders who were ably supported by enthusiastic younger folk. There wasn't a lot of variety in the catch with only 6 species and the total was dominated by 3 of the species. The catch of 172 with 145 new and 27 recaps was surprising as we had started half an hour later than usual and, due to the fact that we were catching mostly recaps already caught during the day, we knocked off an hour or so earlier.

Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 4 (0)

Kyle showing Finn one of the Blackbirds

Dunnock - 1 (2) the oldest recap was banded Oct 2011
Chaffinch - 2 (0)
Greenfinch - 20 (4) the oldest banded Sept 2012

Ross extracting a Greenfinch with Rory and Maddie in attendance

House Sparrow - 34 (7) all the recaps had been banded in the last 2 years.
Silvereye - 84 (14) the big surprise of the day.  A week ago there appeared to be very few in the area and it seems there has been a big influx in the last few days. This is probably the highest number of SE's we have caught in one day in May, with the highest numbers normally being in June/July. Of the recaps 5 were banded in 2013 and the oldest was banded in Feb 2009.  It was originally banded in the Gully below my house (approx. 2 km) and had been recaptured twice at the Zoo in 2010.

Ros, George and Annette extracting Silvereyes.

Hornsey Rd 22 May - Silvereyes are back

I set the Funnel Trap here this morning as there appeared to be a few Silvereyes back in the area. There wasn't a big catch but it is the first significant number for the year.
House Sparrow - 1 (0) a lot more about but most are trap shy.
Greenfinch - 0 (1) a bird banded at the Zoo March 2013
Blackbird - 0 (1)
Silvereye - 8 (6) about a month earlier than last year. Two of the recaps, AP-13676 & 77 were banded together at Houghton Bay in March this year and caught together today. Another 2, AP-11878 & 79 were banded together here in July last year and caught again today. The oldest recap was banded July 2011.

Karori Cemetery Sunday 10 May

We had a session at the Karori Cemetery this morning catching 16 birds of 5 species. This was a bit below my expectations as we didn't catch any Tui which were the target species for today. There were a lot of Tui about and we had several bounce and escape from nets when almost within grasp including a colour banded bird which was probably at least 5 years from banding. Unfortunately we were unable to get the complete combination.

Most of the "Team" hard at work

Species caught were -
Dunnock - 2 (0)
Chaffinch - 1 (0)
Greenfinch - 1 (0)
Blackbird - 9 (2) 1 recap was banded a year ago and the other 2 years ago.

One of the female Blackbirds had very strong markings and in fact from a distance was mistaken for a Song Thrush.

House Sparrow - 1 (0)