Banders Round up

Swanbourne Banding Report:– October – December 2009

31 October 2009 promised to be cloudy in the morning, we hoped for light breezes too. We were let down on both counts. No sooner had we got the nets set that the cloud cover disappeared. But we did catch 22 birds for the morning. We had eight retraps but none of them were banded more than a year ago. There were several young White-cheeked Honeyeaters in the mix, with two who looked like they were caught on their maiden flights. Still covered in down and with half grown tail feathers they were processed quickly and released where caught. Mum and Dad seemed pleased to have been reunited with them. 

 21 November 2009 started cloudy and we had our first customer before the string of nets had been set. It started as a trickle but quickly grew into a flood of inexperienced and distracted birds. Juvenile honeyeaters dominated the catch, often accompanied by what could be their frazzled parents. Brown Honeyeaters again won in striving to be the best retraps. An 8+ Brown Honeyeater was the oldest for the day, but there were also a 4+ and a 5+ Brown Honeyeater, and a 3+ White-browed Scrubwren.