Queenstown Sat 5 Aug - a lot more little green jobs.

Now back in Christchurch after a short trip south. Sorry about this late post but things got a bit busy after spending most of Saturday with nets up. Didn't actually spend that much time banding more like recording numbers. Ended the day having caught 81 individual birds, the actual number of handlings would have been at least twice that as many Silvereyes were caught multiple times. I know I caught the first bird of the morning, Ap-19310 at least 6 times. This is the most birds I have caught in one day at this site.

There were 7 species caught with 33 new and 48 recaptures. By far the majority were Silvereyes with 24 new and 42 recaps. With a total of 66 individuals caught this is the highest number of both total birds and silvereye recaps caught in one day. Twenty four of the Silvereyes were also caught 2 days ago and 38 were new for the month which probably means that there has been considerable movement within the population. Four of the recaps had been banded in Sept 2015 within a week or two of starting banding here including the oldest bird from Thursday which is now 2 days older at 687 days.

There was also a few non Silvereyes caught -
Chaffinch - 2 (0)
Dunnock - 1 (2)
House Sparrow - 3 (0)
Starling - 1 (0)
Bellbird - 1 (4) the new bird was male and the recaps 1 female 3 male including the oldest recap for the species. Five birds in a day is the highest total for Bellbirds.

Adult Male Bellbird

Adult Female Bellbird

Wing of Adult Male Bellbird showing wingtip aging feature

Tui - 1 (0)

The wing of the new Tui showing the lack of a "notch" - aging it as a first year bird.

Queenstown 3 Aug - a lot of Green birds

We arrived back down here on Tuesday for a very short visit, back up north again on Sunday. I put some food out when we arrived and it was surprising how quickly the birds found out about some free tucker.
I put nets up this morning to see what had arrived and had a very busy few hours. Caught a total of 68 birds of 6 species with 30 new and 38 recaptures, by far the majority were Silvereyes esp recaps, add a couple of Greenfinch and a Bellbird and all but 9 were green.

Speciec caught were = (recaps in brackets)
Chaffinch - 3 (2)
Greenfinch - 2 (0)

Both the Greenfinch were handsome adult males.

Dunnock - 0 (1)
House Sparrow - 2 (1) a surprisingly low number.
Silvereye - 23 (38) the highest number of Silvereye caught in one day down here, with also the highest number of recaps. Numerous birds were caught several times making it a busy time. Three of the recaps were banded in Sept 2015 just after banding started here. One caught 685 days from banding is now the oldest bird of any species caught at this property.

One of the Silvereye had a distinctive yellow collar

Bellbird - 0 (1) there were a number of Bellbird and Tui about but this was the only one to find the net.

The Bellbird went into the net a second time so I could take his portrait

All going well I hope to have another session on Saturday morning.

Queenstown - A frosty but busy morning

Rachel came over again this morning for some more banding experience and, she got some. It was a very frosty start with a temperature starting off about -8. We didn't start banding until around 9.30 with the sun starting to get the temperature in postive figures, but not by much.

The double rigged 12 m net with the Remarkables in the background. Photo Rachel Hufton

We caught a total of 71 birds of 7 species with 38 new and 33 recaptures. Birds caught were -
Dunnock - 3 (3)
House Sparrow - 5 (2)
Greenfinch - 1 (0)

The Greenfinch, the first for a while, was a young female.

Chaffinch - 3 (3)
Silvereye - 24 (25) there appears to be heaps about at the moment. We probably caught at least 10 twice making us even busier but all good experiance.
Bellbird - 1 (0)
Tui - 1 (0) when I unexpectedly caught the first Tui here a couple of years ago I thought there was a maximum of 6 birds. How wrong I was, 76 have now been banded and still they come.

Rachel looking a bit anxious as she extracts the Tui. Photo Rachel Hufton

Although the Tui was a young female it could still get a good grasp with its tallons.

Queenstown - A few more birds

I had a couple of nets up for a while this morning. The session was curtailed a bit as I was shouted lunch in Arrowtown and it was well worth it.

I still managed to catch 24 birds of 5 species with 13 new and 11 recaps. Birds caught were -

Blackbird - 1 (0)
Chaffinch - 4 (2) one of the recaps was banded on the third day of banding here and at 658 days from banding is now the oldest bird of any species beating the Silvereye caught on Monday by 7 days.

The old Chaffinch, note the frost on the ground - it was a cracker.

House Sparrow - 1 (1)
Silvereye - 7 (7)
Tui - 0 (1)

The recap Tui - a reasonably old female

Back in Queenstown

We drove down from Christchurch on Saturday and were probably luck to get here. It started to snow just after going over Burkes Pass and by the time we got to Tekepo it was snowing heavily with a considerably amount accumulating. We decided to continue our journey and got through OK. Apparently the road was closed shortly after we went through Tekapo and stayed closed until the next day.

The snow in Tekapo as we went through.

Have had two banding sessions since arriving here. On Sunday afternoon I put a couple of nets up in an effort to catch some of the flock of Chaffinch that were feeding under some trees. Not very successful with a catch of 9 birds and only 2 Chaffinch but did catch a new Tui which was a bonus.

The Tui, an adult male waiting to be extracted from the net.

He weighed in at a respectable 141.2g

Yesterday, (Monday) Rachel came over from Lake Hawea and joined me. We managed to catch 53 birds with 29 new and 24 recaps. The catch was dominated by Silvereye, especially recaptures, with a few House Sparrows and a sprinkling of others.
Combined totals for the two sessions were - (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 1 (0)
Chaffinch - 3 (0)
Goldfinch - 1 (0)

The Goldfinch was a hansome adult male.

House Sparrow - 11 (0) Rather surprised not to recapture any of the 750 birds banded in the last few years.
Silvereye - 17 (26) A considerable number of the recaps were banded in the neighbour's orchard. The oldest recap was banded in Sept 15 about a week after banding started here. at 651 days from banding it is not only the oldest Silvereye but the oldest bird of any species recaptured here.
Bellbird - 1 (1) both were females which is almost unique with males usually dominating.

The new female Bellbird

The recap Female Bellbird.

Tui - 1 (0)

Wellington Zoo - some recapture data

With the Wellington crew finally having a successful catch of birds on Saturday Ross has sent me the recapture information. Most of the recent recaptures at the Zoo have been of birds banded in 2015, the last year when significant numbers were banded. But there were a number of older birds caught.

B-114433 a male House Sparrow was banded on 17 April 2010. At 2485 days from banding it is now the oldest Sparrow recaptured at the Zoo, and interestingly this is the first time it has been recaptured.
BP-9884 a female House Sparrow was banded 18 Oct 2014 it was banded as an adult and although only 939 days from banding is at least 4 years old which is older than most Sparrows manage to get to.
AP-10461 a Silvereye was banded 13 April 2013 and at 1344 days is starting to get into the old bird category.
AP 11787 another Silvereye was banded 22 June 2014, 1091 days from banding and just a few days short of 3 years.
DP- 3165 a female Tui was banded 23 Dec 2012 and recaptured Dec 2016. At 1455 days from banding it is the oldest female Tui recaptured at the Zoo. We have had older colour band re-sightings and much older male recaptures but females prove a bit harder to recapture.

Wellington Zoo 17 June 2017

At last the birds are back in reasonable numbers.  66 captures had the team working hard on a fine Wellington winters day.

Annette's washing line to hold the waiting birds proved to be a great idea.

The captures (recaps in brackets) were:
House Sparrow - 29(4)
Green Finch - 17(2)
Gold Finch - 1(0)
Silvereye - 19(6)

Ros demonstrating the old adage of 2 birds in the hand make banding difficult.
Thanks to Ros, Annette and Geoff for providing level 3 support.