Houghton Valley School - Wed 17 June

George and I had a busy afternoon at the Houghton Bay School. We were ably supported by Andrea as our scribe and George's Grandparents as enthusiastic observers. We also had a lot of Silvereyes and happy children. Dave the Caretaker at the school and our main contact there brought down small groups of kids so they could see the activity and most were able to hold and release a bird.

Some of the kids releasing their birds.

The target species at this site is Silvereye as they are ideal birds to show children and for them to be handled (they don't bite). We caught 45 new and made 4 recaptures, 2 of the recaps were from the Houghton Bay site at the bottom of the valley. Only other birds caught were a Blackbird and a Dunnock.

Hornsey Rd 16 June - Silvereye roundup

I set the funnel trap here this morning primarily to check on the Silvereye numbers. I was pretty successful and there appears to have been an influx of birds during the cold weather we have had over the last few days. Caught 80 with 22 new and 58 recaps. Among the new arrivals were several older birds. Thirty five had been banded this year including 3 from the Zoo and 2 from Houghton Bay. 10 were banded last year, 6 in 2013, 4 in 2011, and 1 each in 09, 08 and 07. This year, up to now, we have caught 73 new Silvereye at this site - in all of last year we only caught 71. This time last year we had only caught 6 new birds.

By-catch included 1 new Blackbird, 1 new Greenfinch and a H Sparrow recap.

Houghton Bay Saturday 13 June

We had a successful session at the Houghton Bay stream on Saturday. Caught 60 birds of 9 species, only 4 were recaps which is a bit disappointing. We have banded over 5500 at this site since we started there in 2008, so I think there must be a large number of birds in the area.

Yvan, George, Anna (courier) and Andrea (scribe) busy at the banding table

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 4
Dunnock - 1
Chaffinch - 4
Goldfinch - 1
Greenfinch - 9
House Sparrow - 2
Grey Warbler - 3
Fantail - 1

Alan banding the Fantail closely watched by his son Sam and his son's friend Axel.

Silvereye - 33 with 4 recaps,  the oldest was banded in 2011

Axel and Sam each with a Silvereye to release

Hornsey Rd 9 June - more Silvereyes

I set the funnel trap at home yesterday and had a pretty good catch. Caught 43 birds with, as expected, most being Silvereyes - 22 new and 12 recaps. No old birds among the recaps with a 2012 bird being the oldest.  Often older birds don't return until July. Silvereye numbers are about 3 weeks ahead of most years when we don't usually catch significant numbers until the end of June into July.

One of the Silvereyes had a very orange chin.

Other birds caught were 2 new Greenfinch and 4 new House Sparrows and a recap.

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.