Halswell Quarry Friday 20 Oct. An enjoyable morning and a couple of old birds.

 We had a banding session near the middle car park of the Quarry yesterday. With very comfortable conditions, perhaps a bit much bright sun but I didn't hear anyone complaining about that. With several of the nets in the shade the lack of wind was a big advantage. With Della, Vanessa, Ruud and Chris we had a small but very experienced team of banders and Jan was our chief helper out.

It wasn't a big catch with 23 birds processed, 16 being new and 7 recaptures. The recapture rate was, I think, very good and included a couple of reasonable old birds. Species caught were - (recaps in brackets)

Chaffinch - 1 (1)

The new bird was a young female.

Silvereye - 2 (1)

House Sparrow - 7 (3) one of the recaps was banded 10 May 2018 and at 1989 days our 2nd oldest House Sparrow recaptured at about a month short of beating the oldest bird which is the oldest of any species.

Blackbird - 4 (3) another old bird amongst the recaps. It was banded 25 May 2018 and it is now our oldest Blackbird recap.

Surprising all the Blackbirds were older birds with no juveniles caught.

An attempt to catch Yellowhammers.

A couple of weeks ago a large flock of Yellowhammers was found feeding on the Rugby League field at the Halswell Domain. A few days later Ruud and I had a not very successful attempt to catch some. Our timing was poor as the field had been mown the afternoon before, cutting off all the seeding weeds. As well there were two vehicles roaring around re-marking the field and spraying around all the edges.

We ended up catching only 7 birds, 5 yellowhammers 1 House Sparrow and a Starling.

One of the Yellowhammers, aged as a young bird.

The Starling was a female, probably breeding in the area.

 

Only a little bit of banding recently - mostly rehab birds.

 There hasn't been much banding lately. We went to the Queenstown area for a few days a couple of weeks ago and it was an eventful trip. Gale force winds then an earthquake followed by a very large fire. When we got to Queenstown the weather had turned and it was teeming down. The following day we had almost continuous thunder and lightning. On the Friday we were woken by our phones sounding an alarm to let us know that a state of emergency had been declared in Queenstown due to slips and flooding. That night it snowed, and we had a trip back with everything except the road covered with the white stuff.

We made a detour to Timaru on the return trip to band a couple of Harriers that were in rehab and almost ready for release.

Back in Christchurch I banded a couple of nestling Blackbirds at Jan's place. Their mother was a bird Jan calls Mrs Green. She was banded with a green colour band a couple of years ago so Jan could keep an eye on the birds around the garden. This is the first time we have been able to definitely identify her chicks.

This last Friday I assisted Pauline the vet at the South Is Wildlife Hosptial to band some birds she had in rehab. There were 3 Harriers, 2 Little Owls and a Kingfisher.

A Little Owl waiting for its bling 

I will just have a little peek.

Getting my new band, first of its kind.

The Kingfisher almost ready to go

The Harriers had a colour band as well as a metal one.

Two of the Harriers, 1 in Timaru and 1 in Christchurch had repair jobs done on their tails. 
As tails are used a lot in maneuvering this procedure helps their survival when released.

Halswell Quarry 7 Sept - A quiet mornig

 We had a session at the Quarry this morning, catching only a handful of birds. The total was 9, with 6 new birds and 3 recaptures. The species were (recaps in brackets) Silvereye 2, Chaffinch 1, House Sparrow 2 (1) Greenfinch 1 (1) and Blackbird (1) 

The total included a couple of interesting recaps. The most significant was a House Sparrow that had been banded 15 Feb 2018. This bird is now at 2030 days from banding our oldest recap of any species at the Quarry. The original banding date was only a couple of months after we started banding at this site. The bird has now been captured 4 times, all at the same site. The Blackbird had been banded at the other end of the Quarry on 19 March 2020 as a juvenile.

We have also had a day banding Harriers last week with limited success. We caught 3 new birds and made 1 recapture.

Friday 18 Aug - An extremely busy morning

 On Friday we had a session at Jan's place on Kennedys Bush Rd next to the Halswell Quarry. With only four of us and a huge number of birds we were kept very busy. In total we processed 122 birds with by far the most being Silvereyes with 111 new and 11 recaptures.  The only others banded were 7 House Sparrows and 3 Greenfinch, all new. The low numbers of non-Silvereyes was probably that with someone at the nets almost constantly extracting Silvereyes the more wary species stayed away. With just 10m of net up, 1x6m, 1x4m, there wasn't much room for birds to squeeze in.

The team consisted of Jan, our host and bag carrier, general helper and coffee maker, Kenny the chief bander, Chris extracting and bander of birds and yours truly keeping out of the way of the workers.

Jan busy carrying bags between other duties.

Amongst the recaps were several banded in 2019 with 2 that were banded on 1 Aug 2019 which are now our oldest recaptured Silvereyes. Interestingly this was the first time that they have been recaptured as was also the case with a couple of other older recaps. It would appear that after an absence of several years a flock of Silvereyes have returned to the area, perhaps because of recent snow falls.

A number of the Silvereyes were suffering from what appears to be Pox lesions. As we do not usually get many poxy birds at this site, I suspect that they have arrived recently, possibly with a flock including the older recaps.

Several birds had Pox above the bill, possibly due to getting infected when extracting berries from a thorny bush.

One of the worst pox cases. I don't think that the bird's future is very bright.

I don't think this is pox but possibly due to some sort of mite infection. We have had about 1-2 cases per year for the last few years. 

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.