Harrier Banding over the last few weeks.

 We have managed to get some Harrier banding done since the last post. This is despite constant interruptions due to rain either real or forecast as well as a significant family birthday to celebrate and a family bereavement. 

We had the traps set at the Cashmere Rd/Hoon Hay Valley site and continued to catch a number of birds. Initially mostly new ones, with 7 banded but then it was mostly recaps with 6 caught in one day and only 1 new one. 

An older female probably in its second year.

A first year female with a dark brown eye.

We then moved the traps out to the Kaitorete Spit on the seaward side of Lake Ellesmere. This is an area that we would like to target Harrier banding but logistically it is a difficult area to operate in due to distance and unpredictable weather.

We managed to get in two half days of banding before the weather, with heavy rain and strong winds, stopped any progress. It was another 3 weeks before we could set the traps again. During this time there appeared to be an almost complete departure of birds with very few seen, and the only bird caught was a recapture. This was an old male and probably the resident breeding one.

The pale-yellow eye of the old chap.

Phil holding the old male.

We have now moved the traps back to the Lakeside area on the other side of Lake Ellesmere where we had a big catch of birds back in May. In a couple of half day sessions on Friday and Saturday we caught 4 new birds and made 3 recaptures. As was the case at the Spit Harrier numbers appear to have dropped considerably. The recaps included one banded back in March. It was first caught on Friday and then again the next day. One of the new birds banded on Friday was also recaptured on Saturday. It appears that some birds are slow learners. I find it interesting that none of the 22 birds banded at the same trap settings back in May were recaptured.

We have also banded 5 Harriers that were in rehab at the South Island Wildlife Hospital and were getting ready for release. These birds came from as far afield as Haast on the West Coast and an urban bird from down the road at the Riccarton Racecourse. It had probably been suffering from secondary poisoning after eating a rat poisoned by an anticoagulant.

A rehab Harrier is released and a bunch of Silvereyes captured.

 On Saturday 17th I was invited to the release of a Harrier that had been injured and was being released back into the wild. It had obviously been feeding on a road killed Hare along with another Harrier on Bealey Rd near Aylesbury when they were struck by a vehicle. The other bird was killed and this one was injured and eventually taken to the NZ Raptor Trust's Hospital in Timaru. After several weeks of TLC from Jenni and Angie and their team he was now fit to be released.

The injured Harrier was initially found by a passing motorist then a local woman came along and assisted but the bird had scramble through a fence and they were unable to catch it and had to wait for her son to come home from school to catch it.

As well as being an observer I was invited along to supervise the banding of this bird. This is done so hopefully information of his survival can be gathered. He was released on a very quiet road near where he was originally found. There were two bands put on him, a metal DOC one with a unique number and a return address to the DOC Banding Office in Wellington on the right leg. On the left leg a Colour band with a 3 digit number. This band was Red with White numbers, which is the colour combination of a Harrier banded in Canterbury. 

The Bands. The DOC one on right leg and Canterbury coloured one on left

The big moment of take off.

Darren the father of the brave lad that caught the injured bird ready for release.
His son is in the background

People gathering for the release.

Angie from The NZ Raptor Trust banding the bird and Tracy who assisted in the bird's capture holding it.

Banding at Jan's last Thursday

We had a successful session at Jan's place on Kennedys Bush Rd on Thursday. Just a small team of Jan, Andrew and myself so we only set up two nets, a 4m and a 9m but this produced a steady flow of birds. There was not much variety with all being Silvereyes except for 2, a House Sparrow and a Bellbird. There were 26 new Silvereyes and 8 recaptures. There were some interesting birds amongst the recaps with 3 originally banded in 2019, 2 on the 1st of August and 1 on the 27th of June. This bird is now the oldest Silvereye we have recaptured. Another bird was originally banded here 11 June 2020 then recaptured at our Cashmere Rd site 28 July last year and now it is back at Jan's.

One of the old Silvereyes

Andrew with the Bellbird, a rarely caught female.

 

More Harrier Banding, Recaptures and a Recovery

 We have continued to be successful with our Harrier trapping and banding. We moved some traps from out in the country to be nearer Christchurch on a farm on Cashmere Rd. We had the traps set there for about a week last winter and were happy with 3 birds caught. This time with actual trapping time restricted by wet weather we banded 10 new birds and recaptured 3. Two of the recaps had been banded recently but the other was 1 of the 3 from last year. This bird is now our oldest recapture being just short of a year. Part of the purpose of this study is to follow the changes in eye colour as a bird ages. They have dark brown eyes when first fledged, this changes to a pale yellow in an old bird.

Ruud holding one of the new Cashmere birds. A youngster with a dark brown eye. .

Kenny holding the first Harrier he has banded. An old female with a pale
yellow eye.

The recap showing a paler eye

The darker brown eye of a year ago.

There have also been birds caught at our Motukarara site. Three new and four recaptures, the oldest recap was banded back in February.

We have also had an interesting recovery reported. A banded bird was found in a winter feed crop on Milltown Rd about 2km from where it was banded. It was in very poor condition, very light and unable to stand, it died shortly after being found. It had obviously been there for a considerable time having trampled down an area of crop It is presumed that the bird had dropped into the foliage after prey and had been unable to fly out this would have been accentuated by everything being wet including its plumage.

The unfortunate bird as it was found.

Harrier Banding update - A couple of busy days.

 After a quiet period with low catches and major weather holdups we had a couple of huge days. 

The ground was too wet to drive on so we could only set traps through gateways, but we managed to find enough obliging property owners to provide enough sites. This meant some extra driving but it proved worthwhile. 

Last Thursday the three Reese boys ( well actually old men!) set up and baited a number of traps. After a coffee break we commenced banding and kept banding until nearly dark. It's surprising how quickly it gets dark at the moment. We banded a total of 11 new birds we also caught 1 twice in the morning. It had an empty crop but in the afternoon with a full crop it weighed 70g heavier. The number of birds banded was a new record for one day beating the old highest total of 7 by a considerable number.

My two helpers for the day, twins Alan on the left and John on the right.

On Monday this week it was decided to try again. The team for the day was Ruud, my brother Alan and myself. I have a rule of thumb that when working the same site within a couple of weeks the numbers caught drops by about half. So I was expecting a catch of about 5 or 6 birds-how wrong I was! After setting the traps and a short break we were busy for the rest of the day. In fact we were unable to process the birds in the last 2 traps which contained 9 birds 4in one & 5 in the other. Two of the birds were already banded and we were able to read the colour bands before releasing them all without handling any. The total for the day was 11 new birds 3 recaptures and the 2 sighted in the last traps.

Ruud banding with Alan controlling the sharp bits.

Ruud proudly holding the first wild caught Harrier he has banded. 

There appears to have been a large influx of Harriers into the Ellesmere area in the last few weeks with most of them being young birds with a few older ones Hopefully we will get some recoveries/sightings from wherever they go to or come from.

Two birds that are probably starting to change out of juvenile plumage and eye colour

Oystercatcher Catching and The latest Banding Office Newsletter

 Last week a consortium of people attempted to Catch South Island Pied Oystercatchers (SIPO)on the New Brighton Spit. The catchers included people from DOC, Birds NZ and Christchurch City Council. The plan was to use a cannon net to catch them while they roosted at high tide at the end of the Spit. The plan worked with 99 birds colour flagged and 10 fitted with GPS tracking packs.

Photos courtesy of Andrew Crossland.

The net almost ready to fire.


Either Kenny showing Phil how it's done or Phil showing Kenny

Phil completing the job.

The Finished product.

The latest Banding Office Newsletter

20th edition of BirDBanD: 

Another Harrier Update

 Things have been a little quiet on the banding front lately especially with Passerine banding due to rubbish weather and a lack of catchable birds. The only ones have been caught by Ruud at his place when he got a bit bored and put a net up for some practice. He didn't catch much but did recapture a couple of Silvereyes that are almost certainly a pair. They were both banded on the 1 Aug 2019 at Jan's, which is only a about 100m from the recapture site so have probably stayed together for at least several years.

One of Jan's/Ruud's old Silvereyes

We have also attempted to catch some more Harriers with varied success. We have set the trap at Phils on several occasions with only one attempt being successful with two birds caught.  Both sessions were of short duration due to inclement weather. This week we have also set traps on two occasions near Southbridge with four traps set each time. On Monday we had some success with 3 birds caught, Two young birds caught together and an adult female. All were caught in the same trap and I suspect the older bird is the 2 youngsters' mother. Yesterday (11 May) we again set the traps with even less success, with the only catch being the recapture of the adult from 3 days before. The poor result was not because of a lack of birds as we had a number inspecting the traps but not going in. Perhaps they are not hungry at the moment having feasted on some of the duck hunters' mistakes.

The under wing of the Adult showing the moult progress.

The adult with a yellow eye

One of the young birds with its brown eye.

We have had a couple of birds we banded featured on TV this week. If you watched "Seven Sharp" on TV 1 last evening, you might have seen an article on Raptors being presented to a school in Timaru. The two stars were a Harrier and a Little Owl. The keen eyed amongst you might have seen that both birds were banded. This was done at the NZ Raptor Trust property in Timaru with our help.

The TV Star being held by her trainer.

Angie banding the TV star.

Banding Update - March, April

 We haven't been doing a lot of banding over the last month or so. It mostly consisted of a couple of Hospital visits and some Harrier banding.

The Hospital visits were not thankfully of the human kind but wildlife ones. The first was to the South Island Wildlife Hospital at Willowbank. This was the only session with much variety. There was a Kingfisher, 2 Harriers, 2 Little Owls and 2 Moreporks. The latter were the most interesting for me. Pauline who is the Vet and manager of the hospital now does most of the banding, but I pulled rank and banded the first Morepork. I had not banded one before, have caught several in mist nets but was not able to band them as my permit did not cover that particular site. Pauline banded the rest and is becoming very competent. 

The second Hospital visit was to the NZ Raptor Trust in Timaru where there were 7 Harriers waiting for their bling. These were duly banded by Angie and Jenni who are also becoming good at banding these birds.

Angie bands a bird while Jenni holds the dangerous bits.

Most of the birds were youngsters who have yet to learn that cars are dangerous.

We have also caught a number of Harriers at two of our local sites. At Phil's place in Motukarara we have banded 7 birds and recaptured another twice. This is proving a great site for Harriers, not sure if they are all local or if this property is on a flight path, perhaps between Lake Ellesmere and Banks Peninsula.

One of the Motukarara birds saying "If you touch me I will bite your nose off"

In the Lakeside area near Leeston we banded a couple of birds. This was actually a bit disappointing as there were a number of birds about and we had several traps set. Both birds were caught at the same time in the same trap. One was an adult female and the other a young male, I suspect they might have been Mother and Son. There were also two other birds waiting to possibly enter the trap.

Two birds in a trap.

The Young male with its brown eye.

The Older Female with a Yellow eye.

PJ Holding the male.