Island Bay Monday 17 Feb - Heaps of Sparrows

Annette and I had a busy time at our Island Bay site this morning. I had hoped to get a few more people along but no such luck. We only caught 5 species and the catch was dominated, as is usual at this site, by House Sparrows. Although we caught 90 birds there was only 1 recapture, and this was partly due to the vast majority of birds being juveniles.

Species caught were -
Blackbird - 4

All the Blackbirds were juveniles and were a very motley lot with their partly moulted body feathers 

Dunnock - 8
Chaffinch - 7
Tui - 2
House Sparrow - 68 (1) the recap was banded Dec 2010 so a reasonably old bird

Most of the Sparrows were in primary moult with this one doing it a bit differently and not moulting in sequence.

The recap had an unusual pattern  on her lesser coverts.

Juvenile males were at various stages of moult with the one on the left nearly finished while the right one is just starting.
Others had not started and had only fledged a short time ago.

As usual we had great hospitality from our host Marion and Ken with a fine feast to keep us going. This was much appreciated especially as they had had a very busy weekend with their involvement at the Island Bay fair.