Some Banding this week - Silvereyes at Jan's & Redpolls at the Awatea Swale.

 We had a session at Jan's place next to the Halswell Quarry yesterday, 17 Sept with very marginal conditions. There was a strong gusty westerly blowing and although we put nets up out of the worst of the wind, gusts would still catch them at times. There had also been a very marked drop off of bird numbers during the week due to the warm weather with birds dispersing to their spring haunts.

We processed 21 birds which was better than I had expected considering the conditions,. There were 19 new with 2 recaps. Silvereyes were the main species with 16 new and a recap, 3 new House Sparrows and a Chaffinch recap made up the rest. The Chaffinch was banded at this site 1 Aug last year.

I have also attempted to catch some more of the Redpolls that are feeding in a large flock in the water retention swale on Awatea Rd with mixed success. Last Sunday I caught just 4 before the flock moved to another feeding area. On Wednesday I was a bit more successful catching 12. This makes a total of 25 banded at the Swale over the last few weeks. The only bycatch was a House Sparrow. I had thought some Goldfinches might have been possible as there are 20+ feeding with the Redpolls.

Most of the birds are drab first year birds but there are a few brightly coloured older males.

 

This bird is more of an Orange poll rather than the usual Redpoll

Awatea Rd Swale - a few Redpolls

While doing a bird count last Sunday I found that there was a large number (100+) of Redpolls feeding in the water retention swale across the road from where I live. On Monday I tried to catch some, erecting 2, 2 Shelf 15m nets in the only bit of shade available. In the first attempt I caught 4, these are the first caught in Christchurch for a long time. After the first attempt I had to abandon catching as a woman with a completely out of control dog came along. It would bark at anything and everything.  It was loose and she couldn't catch it or control it in anyway. Every time she went past me she said "sorry" and carried on.

This morning I had another attempt, managing to catch 5 before a gang of Magpies (at least 7)came along and all small birds disappeared. I am away down South now for the next couple of weeks so I will have to wait until I get back to see if the birds are still around.

All the Redpolls caught and seen appeared to be of the Lesser type.

The first Redpoll I have caught & banded in Canterbury for a long time.

Halswell Quarry Fri 28 Aug - more new Silvereyes

We had a pretty good session at the Quarry Friday morning, when it was mostly calm and sunny. The sun was on the nets at times but I don't think anyone was complaining. We were a small group, Kenny, Ruud and myself along with Ririka a Japanese student learning about banding and NZ birds. We also had visits from Jan and Rod and his daughter visiting from Dunedin.

Even with only 2 nets up (1x12m 1x6m) we were kept busy. We processed a total of 51 birds of 4 species, and all except 2 were new. The majority were Silvereyes with 43 new birds but only 1 recapture. The recap rate is surprising with over 400 banded in the area this year and over 1000 in the last 3 years, where have all the rest gone?
Other species were House Sparrow with 3 new and 1 recap. The recap was banded as a juvenile on 1 Feb 2018 and is now at 939 days from banding our oldest recap of any species. Two Song Thrush and a solitary Blackbird were the others. Very surprised we didn't catch any Finches at all.

Ririka photographing Rudd with "his" Thrush

Ririka about to release the Song Thrush. She is proving to be a delightful young woman to have with us.

And with Kenny and "his" Blackbird

Halswell Quarry - Yellowhammers

Earlier this week it was noticed that a large flock of (100+) birds were feeding on newly sown grass seed on the side of Kennedys Bush Rd. This road is on the western side of the Quarry park. The birds were mostly Yellowhammers and Sparrows but there appeared to be a number of Cirl Buntings as well. One count estimated up to 25 CB's, a really significant number.

It was decided to attempt to see if we could catch a few. On Thursday afternoon Ruud and I set up a net in some bush next to the feeding site to see if it was possible to manage this. We were able to get a net in place but with a moderate southerly wind springing up and the site being in full sun we weren't very successful, catching only 2 Yellowhammers.

Ruud with his first Yellowhammer - looking very pleased.

On Friday morning with much better conditions we again had a go. We had some additional help with Jan, Luke & Andrew arriving. We were able to catch 9 more Yellowhammers before they disappeared. It was then found that they had moved to a new subdivision around the corner on Cashmere Rd where all the road verges had been also newly sown giving the birds a large alternative feeding site.

Ruud & Luke with two of Friday's birds.

Kennedys Bush Rd Thursday 29 July - Ruud's place

A small group had a session in Ruud's garden Thursday morning. This is about 100m from Jan's garden where we have banded over 500 birds in the last 18 months. The session was a good steady one with 79 birds of 5 species processed. There were 74 new and 5 recaptures with the recap rate being much lower than I had expected.

As expected Silvereyes dominated the catch with 54 new and 3 recaps. Two of the recaps were banded at Jan's 13 months ago with the other one banded down in the Quarry near the duck pond one month ago. This poses the question of where the 450 we have banded at Jan's have gone?

House Sparrows  with 16 new and 2 recaps were the next highest species, both recaps were banded at Jan's. Other species were 2 Dunnocks 1 Starling and a Blackbird, all new.

Ruud proved to be an extremely good coffee maker and we were treated to a very good brew, thanks Ruud. We also had the comfort of deck chairs when not busy. 

Today's team Jan, Ruud & Kate.

Halswell Quarry Wed 22 July a good steady morning

We had a session at the Quarry this morning, and with some late additions to the team it proved to be a successful one. I had been expecting a smaller group so hadn't feed as much as normal so was pleased with the result.

Thirty four birds of 6 species were processed with 27 new and 7 recaps. Species caught were (recaps in brackets)
Blackbird - 1 (0)
Dunnock - 0 (1) it was banded at the same site just over a year ago as a first year bird.

The recap Dunnock now in its second year

House Sparrow - 4 (0)
Chaffinch - 2 (0)
Greenfinch - 1 (0)
Silvereye - 18 (5) as we were using the same net site as recent sessions birds have become a little net shy. Two of the recaps were banded in 2018 the rest more recently.
Bellbird - 2 (1) The recap was banded on our first session after lockdown back in May at a fruiting Arbutus tree about 500m away.

The Bellbird recap about to be released

Ruud with "his" Bellbird proudly displaying his red badge of honour.

Jan's Garden Friday 3rd July - A busy morning

We had a very busy morning at Jan’s on Friday. There were birds almost as thick as hair on a cat’s back. By far the most were Silvereyes . There was also a variety of other species but because there was almost always people at the nets extracting Silvereyes others didn’t get a look in. We only had 2 nets up but in order to cope with the number of Silvereyes flocking into them we had to furl one for quite long periods.

We processed 120 birds, a record number for a session, there were 108 new and 12 recaps. As expected Silvereyes made up the bulk with 105 new and 11 recaptures. The recaps were split about even between birds banded at the session 2 weeks ago and those  from last year, with 2 banded down in the Quarry. The only other species caught were 2 House Sparrows and 1 new and 1 recap Greenfinch. The recap Greenfinch was banded down in the Quarry in the Conservation area near the pond  in Sept last year.