Seven of us, Dianne, Ros, Otis, Mary, Ross, Kate and I had a good morning's banding at Island Bay this morning.With near perfect conditions we caught 129 birds of 7 species with 109 new birds and 17 recaptures. We hadn't had a session there for a while due to damage from the 2 southerly storms we have had in the last month. Although access has been cleared and there was no major damage to buildings there is still a lot of clearing up to do and fire wood for the foreseeable future. Ken reported that the behavior of birds during the storms was interesting with a big build up of birds especially Tui with up to 30 coming at a time. Consequently huge quantities of food were being devoured.
Species caught were - (Recaps in brackets)
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| Kate with one of the Blackbird recaps. |
Blackbird - 5 (3)
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| Otis with the first Blackbird he has banded. |
Dunnock - 1 (1)
Greenfinch - 11 (2) 1 was banded here in July 2010 and is now the oldest Greenfinch caught at this site the other was banded at the Zoo in August 2010.
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| Ross, Ros and Otis comparing Greenfinch age and sex. |
House Sparrow - 34 (8)
Starling - 2 (0)
Silvereye - 53 (3) the biggest catch at this site for a couple of years. The oldest recap was banded in June 2009.
Tui - 3 (0)
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| Ross showing off "his" Tui to Mary (wife) and Kate (daughter) |
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| The damage that can be inflicted by Tui claws (and this is only a young one) |
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| The resulting bloody mess (my blood not Tui blood) |
Once again a special thanks to our hosts, Marion and Ken for their hospitality and very welcome morning spread and hot drinks.
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