Houghton Bay 4 March - a quick session

I had a couple of hours free this morning so set up a couple of nets at the Houghton Bay stream. It proved to be quite successful catch 47 birds of 8 species with 43 new and 4 recaps.
Species caught were -
Blackbird - 1 (0)
Chaffinch - 2 (1)
Greenfinch - 3 (0)
House Sparrow - 4 (0)
Starling - 1 (0) This is our first Staling at this site for a couple of years. In 2008 our first year banding there we caught 19.  At that time there was a stretch of open stream but since then it has become overgrown and very few Starlings now use it.

The Starling, a juvenile female was in heavy moult

Grey Warbler - 1 (1) the recap was banded in Feb 2010 so another reasonably old bird. Although not aged when banded it was noted that it had a brown eye, now it is bright red.
Fantail - 3 (0) 2 juveniles and an adult all doing body moult but not moulting their primaries yet.

One of the juv Fantail moulting into adult plumage

  

The adult Fantail also in body moult