Jan's Place 23 June - A lot of birds but not much variety

We had a session at Jan's place on Kennedys Bush Rd, Thursday morning. It was a busy morning with 82 birds processed, all but 4 new birds. Almost all were Silvereyes with 74 new and the 4 recaps, the only other species were 3 House Sparrows and a solitary Blackbird. There were plenty of other birds around but due to having to be constantly at the nets extracting Silvereyes other species kept their distance. Three of the recaps were banded at this site within the last year or so but the other was banded in Finlays Picnic area down in the Quarry. Even though we set fewer nets than usual we still needed to furl them at times to prevent getting overwelmed with birds. The weather was marginal at time with light misty rain forcing us to move the banding station into a glass house which was a bit cramped but kept the paper work dry.

One of the first birds caught was a Silvereye with a granular type growth on a foot. We seem to catch a couple or so each year with this condition.

We were shouted to a celebratery cake by Kenny to commemerate his achieving his Level 2 permit.

Akaroa - A belated post 22-23 May

A few of the group were invited to join Laura when she was colour banding Tui around Akaroa. This is a project attempting to check on the progress of the population folowing the species reintroduction to the area a number ofyears ago. Laura's permit only allows her to band Tui and not any bycatch, as the permit that the group bands under most passerine species are bandabe. So the plan was that Laura would colour band the Tui and we would band any bycatch. On the morning of Saturday 22 May we started at a site at Takamatua at the head of the Akaroa Harbour.This proved to be vary successful for us but not so for the Tui catchers. All the the birds caught were adult male Bellbird of which there were incredible numbers, although there were Tui about they avoided the net. We were treated to a fabulus morning tea with great view. Ruud also took the opertunaty to do what he is very good at, both entertain and educate younger folk. In the afternoon and on the Sunday morning most of the group moved on to a site in the Akaroa township. I unfortunatly couldn't join them having to head back to Christchurch. I gather that the catch at this new site was fantastic with a total of 17 new Tui banded plus a few recaps from previous sessions. Bellbirds also proved to numerous, with the total for the trip being 22. There was also a few other species like Silvereye and Blackbird banded.

Jan's Place Kennedys Bush Rd 20 May - at last a bit of variety.

We had our first session of the year at Jan's garden this morning. Numbers of birds are slowly building up although there is still a lot of natural food about and it will probably be another month or so until there a big catches.

There were 18 birds of 7 species processed with all but 1 new. The new birds were -

Blackbird 4, Chaffinch 1, Silvereye 2, Dunnock 1, Bellbird 1, Fantail 1 and 7 House Sparrows and 1 recap which was originally banded at this site Sept 2019 then recaptured at Ruud's July 2020 and now back where it started.

The Blackbirds were all Male, two old blokes and a couple of young fellas. 
This is the first two blackbirds caught. The old bird underneath and a young one at the top which must have fledged very late as it hadn't completed its moult.

Ririka and Ruud with the first two Blackbirds.
Ririka has just received her L1 banding permit and this is the first Blackbird she has banded. 

Ririka with her first Chaffinch.

Ruud proudly displaying "his" Bellbird.

Halswell Quarry Thu. 13 May - a reasonable catch but little variety.

 We had a session at the Quarry yesterday morning with nets set around a fruiting Arbutus (Strawberry) Tree with the aim of catching Blackbirds and perhaps a Bellbird or two. Although we caught a reasonable number of birds in total only 1 Blackbird was caught and Bellbirds just sang from the tops of nearby trees. 

Twenty one birds were caught, all new with 1 each of Blackbird, Song Thrush and Dunnock. The rest, 18 were all House Sparrows, interestingly all but 2 were males. If it hadn't been for Alice extracting a bird as we were taking the nets down there would a ratio of only 1 Female to 16 Males.

Alice with the first bird banded for the day - the Song Thrush.
As you can see the morning started out pretty cold.

Most of the team. Left to Right Alice, Kenny, Ririka our scribe, Phil, Laura and William who was observing the joys of bird banding for the morning.

Halswell Quarry, Thursday 22 April.

 We had a session at the Quarry on Thursday morning with beautiful conditions. Well beautiful to be in but a bit much sunshine for banding, making parts of some nets very visible as the sun came on them.

 A good turn out of banders but unfortunately the bird numbers were below expectations. We caught a total of 15, all new. House Sparrows 6, Greenfinch 3, Silvereye 3, and 1 each of Chaffinch, Dunnock and the highlight of the day a Grey Warbler. The first for the year.

Eleanor banding the Grey Warbler. By its eye colour aged as a 1st year

Halswell Quarry Thursday 8 April - an enjoyable morning and a couple of old birds

We had a session at The Quarry this morning, not a huge catch but up to expectations. We set the nets under some old pear trees which had ripe fruit. Caught a total of 18 birds with 16 new and 2 recaptures. The new birds were 5 Blackbirds, 5 Silvereyes, 4 House Sparrows and a couple of Dunnocks. Had hoped to catch a couple of the Bellbirds that were in the area but were unsuccessful. The two recaptures were the most interesting. A Blackbird that was banded in June 2018 was, at 1056 days, for a short time the oldest of any species we have caught at the Quarry. Then we caught a Silvereye that had been banded in Jan 2018 and is, at 1169 days from banding, now the oldest recap of any species. It was originally banded in the Conservation Area at the western end of the Quarry. It has been recaptured twice before today. Firstly at the Arbutus tree in May 2020 about 100m from today's site then it was back in the Conservation Area in June 2020.

Most of today's Crew. Back - Ruud, Archie, Chris,
Front Jan, Ririka and Kenny.

Babs (Barbara) who has handled the rare Black Robin with her first Blackbird
 

We had a couple of new people join us, Chris and Archie, both are Level 3 banders and gave our team a lot of very useful tips and alternative techniques. I especially found the exchange of information and ideas very valuable. 

 Although we haven't done much banding in the last few weeks we haven't been completely idle. The erection of 10 Little Owl nest boxes was an interesting task. We will have to wait at least a few months to see if they are successful.

Halswell Quarry - Thu 11 Feb. - A reasonably successful morning.

 We had our first session at the Quarry for the year on Thursday morning. With 20 birds caught it was very similar to the equivalent summer sessions over the last couple of years when we caught 19.  There was a smaller number of banders this year but still sufficient to handle the bird numbers. 

Most of the Team, L to R Jan our main helper-outer. Sandra our Scribe, and banders Eleanor and Andrew.

There were 6 species caught with 16 new and 4 recaps. As is usual at this time of year House Sparrows dominated and Silvereyes were absent in contrast to the Winter months. There appears to be a big drop in Chaffinch numbers, from being well represented a couple of years ago to being absent or near absent.

Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)

Dunnock - 1 (0)

Greenfinch - 0 (1)

Yellowhammer - 1 (0) The last bird caught as we were taking nets down.

Ririka, our Japanese student photographing the Yellowhammer

House Sparrow - 13 (2) about half were newly fledged juveniles.

Song Thrush - 0 (1) We have only banded 20 S Thrushes at the Quarry and this was only our 2nd recapture and is our oldest.

Fantail - 1 (0) A newly fledged bird enticed into a net by our Fantail whisperer, Andrew but he failed with its sibling.