Autumn Movements

We have had poor weather conditions for the last couple of weekends, including being completely rained off last week.

But on April 2nd we had excellent banding conditions and the birds did not disappoint. The large movements of Silvereyes typical of this time of year have started, and these made up the majority of our catch (100 birds, 74 of which were Silvereyes). We controlled one Silvereye from nearby Bold Park, the same bird we controlled in January.
This session also marked a significant milestone where we surpassed a total of 7000 Silvereyes banded over the course of the Herdsman Lake Project.

An unusually bright-yellow Silvereye (right) compared to a 'normal' coloured Silvereye (left)

No waterbirds this week, however we still banded a couple of larger birds in the form of an Australian Raven and an Australian Hobby.

Australian Raven. Note the brown eye in this young bird. Adults have a white iris.

Australian Hobby

The highlight of the day was a most unexpected Western Spinebill, only the sixth ever banded at Herdsman Lake. It was a young bird and probably just passing through, as we tend to see in species like White-cheeked Honeyeater at Herdsman.

First-year Western Spinebill

Species - new (retrap) [control]
Australian Hobby - 1
Australian Raven - 1
Australian Reed-warbler - (2)
Brown Honeyeater - 6 (2)
New Holland Honeyeater - 1
Red Wattlebird - 2
Rufous Whistler - 1
Silvereye - 68 (5) [1]
Singing Honeyeater - 1 (1)
Striated Pardalote - 1 (1)
Western Gerygone - 3
Western Spinebill - 1
Willie Wagtail - 1 (1)
Total - 87 (12) [1] = 100