Monday 18 September 2017

Queenstown Monday 18 Sept - mostly silver

I put nets up again this morning with marginal weather conditions. Periods of light rain fortunately didn't get heavy enough to stop the catching. Around lunch time the wind strengthened and the nets had to come down. The catching had been steady all morning consisting mostly of Silvereyes. The wind turned out to be a bit of a blessing in discuise as at midafternoon I checked the neighbours hen house and found that the hens had been let out for some fresh fodder but some time after they had been let out the wind had blown the door closed trapping a large number of birds inside. With a hand net I was able to catch a number - most were Chaffinches with a few House Sparrows and a couple of Silvereye recaps.

The combined catch for the day was 69 birds with 39 new and 30 recaptures. But with only 4 species there wasn't much variety. Species caught were =
House Sparrow - 5 (3)
Chaffinch - 11 (7) a recap had been banded 20 Sept 2015 and is now the oldest recap for the species and joint oldest for any species.
Most of the Chaffinch were male.
Silvereye - 23 (19) The old bird from yeterday was caught again now of course a day older so it is now joint record holder with the Chaffinch.
Bellbird -  (1)

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