On Tuesday we caught and banded two female robins up on Whaler’s Track. Melanie knew that there were three un-banded black robin moms in that area. But we didn’t know which of our newly banded girls belonged with which robin male. Annika was sent to find out. She worked out that we’d banded Findlay James’ mate pale blue, metal, white, fluorescent pink and Tawhitis’ mate dark green, metal, yellow, fluorescent pink.
Aren't they cute!
The un-banded female, which we’d still love to band, turns out to be June, Cash’s mate. Annika found their nest this morning and they have one egg. We’re not going to be here to see it hatch, which is a shame because if she had been a girl we would have called her Roseanne!
All these extra little bits of information makes the black robin database as complete as possible so that there is an accurate picture of who is related to whom.
We are hungry!
I went back to KD 24, Raginis’ and Lorenzos’ nest, this morning to see my favourite chick. He is probably a male as he is huge and fluffy, so I’ve named him Pip short for Pipsqueak! He may have fledged when I go back tomorrow, so I wanted to say goodbye to him and wish him well.
Regarding tomtit news, we were worried that we had disturbed Agatha and Eiko last week by banding them, but were delighted to go back today and see that their chicks Aroha (named after my niece) and Ben and Zoe (named after my oldest friend’s children) are still growing and are also due to fledge soon.
It’s hard to believe that in a few days the forest birds will be getting on with their lives and not only will we not be here to see it, we’ll know nothing about them until the next time a research team arrives to update us.
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