A preliminary investigation of the status of the godwit in New Zealand suggests that its summer population here does not exceed 200,000. The indications are that its migratory route to and from Siberia and New Zealand are in a much more direct, north to south, movement than has been usually accepted and is not by way of the Malay Peninsula. Considerably more field work is required to make a more accurate assessment of the numbers of godwit in New Zealand.
In the three years 1951–3 206 harriers have been caught and marked at two trapping stations in Hawke’s Bay. Thirty-five birds have so far been recovered and a further 14 were recaught in subsequent years where ringed. The returns indicate that the old birds tend to stay within a radius of about five miles but a proportion of the young ones disperse up to several hundred miles from where they were ringed.
Methods and preliminary results are given of a study involving the ringing of 189 blackbirds (Turdus merula) at Lower Hutt, New Zealand, between 16 July 1951 and 25 March, 1953. Results generally follow those already reported from blackbirds in Great Britain. Adult birds were resident about’ the trapping station, but defence of territory was not marked; the size of the home range increased when the birds were feeding young. Of 26 ringed adults. 14 were retrapped at the station a year later, but only one of the rest was known to be dead; mortality among birds of the year was much higher. Young birds were recovered from up to a mile from where ringed. There was a marked seasonal variation in trapping success of both adults and juveniles, 84% of the birds were caught between October and February.