We have been busy on Metinic here the last few weeks, but this past week has been exceptionally so! With the terns nesting extra early this year, deploying transmitters and completing the census had to be moved up sooner on the calendar. For us that meant that both of those tasks had to be done this week since we knew that eggs would be hatching any day. I’ll come back to all of that here in a minute though.
Let’s backtrack a tad. While we mainly have nesting terns here on Metinic, we also are fortunate enough to have breeding black guillemots and Leach’s storm-petrels as well. Over the last few weeks, we have worked hard to track down active nesting burrows for both species and have been quite successful! Through the years it has been documented where these birds historically nest, so we checked these spots out first.
For the storm-petrels, we went out several nights and played their chatter call in areas where we knew and thought they might have burrows. We would wait and listen for any to respond. If one did, we moved closer to the area that the bird was calling from so that we could pinpoint a more accurate location. Once we had that, we would place a flag near the entrance of the burrow and take a GPS location. After three nights of this, we were pleased to have found over 110 active burrows for storm-petrels! If you’re wondering why we did this at night… well, they are nocturnal, so that is the easiest time to get a response from them.
Pictured above: Leach’s storm-petrels in or near their burrows
To locate black guillemot burrows, we canvassed the rock cliffs surrounding the island. We checked spots that had been used in previous years, checked any other nearby crevices, and watched for birds that flushed from their burrows. Some of the guillemots nested so far back into these crevices that we could barely see the eggs! They don’t really make a nest, they just kind of plop their eggs right onto the rocks. Take a look for yourself.
Pictured above: Liz and Hayden checking any crevice that looked suitable for a guillemot burrow throughout the cliffs
Pictured above: black guillemot burrows with both eggs and guillemots!
However, most recently we have been focused on the Arctic and common terns. We were (and still are) finding new nests daily. We were working hard to erect our productivity plots throughout the colony, making an effort to have a sizable number of nests from both tern species. After all was said and done, we ended with 12 plots with 79 nests total. These plots will get monitored daily until all eggs within hatch. Once all eggs hatch, they will get monitored every other day until the chicks fledge. Several plots have started having eggs hatch, so chick banding has commenced! Each chick gets a BBL (bird banding lab) band with a unique nine digit number. They also have their mass and wing chord recorded. We will continue to take those measurements until they fledge to see how much they grow over the season. Ready to see some insanely adorable chicks now? Me too!
Pictured above: Arctic and common terns of various ages (0-2 days old)
However, since the arrival of chicks, the parents have become increasingly aggressive. While it can be quite unpleasant, we do appreciate how protective they are of their babies! When processing the chicks in our productivity plots, we become the targets for the parents. Please enjoy the following photos of both us with chicks and enduring dive bombs from the adults while recording data.
Pictured above: (L) Liz, myself, and Hayden with freshly banded common tern chicks from one of our productivity plots (M) Hayden getting dive bombed by a common tern (R) myself getting dive bombed by a common tern
This week we had lots of visitors! On Wednesday, folks from the NWR and Gettysburg College came over to help us trap adult Arctic and common terns, and then they banded them, collected measurements, and deployed transmitters which will be used to determine where the terns are collecting prey items from. It was neat to get to assist and learn about how these transmitters are attached and how they work. We will continue to monitor the terns with transmitters throughout the season to see what types of prey they are bringing to their chicks. Thanks to refuge staff (Michael Langlois, Linda Welch, and Nick Pastore) and those with Gettysburg College (Kennan Yakola, Tasha Gownaris, and Rafael Angelo Revoredo) for the opportunity to participate in this process!
Pictured above: (L) Here I am assisting with the attachment of a transmitter on a common tern (M) A common tern with its transmitter (R) Liz assisting with the attachment of a transmitter on an Arctic tern
Thursday brought more guests out to help us conduct the census. The north end of the island where the tern colony is is marked off into a grid system which we walked systematically to help ensure that we counted as many nests as possible. This took us several hours as we walk half a grid at a time (15m), which is tedious but precise! At the end of the day our total nest number for both Artic and common terns came to 1,199! This is the number of nests we found plus the nests in our productivity plots. It’s a little lower than last year, but we are pleased. Many thanks to those who helped us conduct the census: Michael Langlois, Brian Benedict, Eddy Edwards, Mark McCullough, and Katie Doiron. We couldn’t have done it without y’all!
Pictured above: Walking in a straight line, arms-width apart during the census to find as many nests as possible
Along with tern chicks, we have also been seeing chicks of other species throughout the island. Savannah sparrows and song sparrows pop up throughout the brush every morning that I’m out conducting our bird walks to alert their chicks to stay hidden. The killdeer parents greet me at survey point 3 each time. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to see the chicks that have grown significantly since I first arrived to the island. Common eider creches are seen on a daily basis across the island along the waters beneath the cliffs. The biggest I’ve seen to date had a whopping 26 chicks in it! Our most recent chicks have been spotted sandpipers, and they are too cute. They are already bobbing up and down like the adults do! Life is truly flourishing here on Metinic.
Pictured above: (L) common eider creche with one adult female and four ducklings (Top right) spotted sandpiper chick (Bottom right) killdeer chick
These next few weeks are sure to be busy with eggs hatching every day. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather out on the islands so that we can be as productive as possible while watching over our colonies. Till next time, enjoy another Metinic sunset and my newest fashion statement: a thick towel under my hat so that when the terns hit me, I can hardly feel a thing!
-Hannah
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