Hey, campers!
We completed our census this week, where we surveyed the entire island to count as many tern nests as possible. With six volunteers bringing our group up to twelve for the day, the census took us five hours to complete.
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PMI census in action; picture taken by Bob Trapani
Amanda had to time the census to coordinate as close as possible to the first hatchings so that we could count as many nests as possible without disturbing chicks or fearing for chicks running about under our feet as we walked the whole island. She did such an excellent job with her hatching calculations and predictions that our census date brought our very first chicks!
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First arctic tern chick on the island, held by supervisor Amanda McFarland
Last year’s weather made the census numbers quite low in comparison to previous years, but this year our numbers were up by almost 12%! This season has ranked the second highest in the last decade for nests with a clutch size of 3 eggs, so we are hoping to have a high fledging and chick survival rate, too!
PMI 2023 Season | PMI 2024 Season |
– 961 tern pairs = 1,922 terns – nearly half of nests had a clutch size of 1 egg, most of which were abandoned | – 1,072 tern pairs = 2,144 terns – majority of clutch size = 2 eggs (59%); nearly 20% of nests with a clutch size of 3 eggs! |
Lastly, one of our volunteers for census was Sara York, who has been working at Acadia National Park this summer on peregrine falcon conservation. Peregrines and laughing gulls are the top two predators for the birds on our island and the main objective of the Maine Coastal Islands project is active protection of the birds, with research conducted by the Fish and Wildlife Service and Gettysburg College professor, Tasha Gownaris being an extra bonus of our time here. However, peregrines are still considered threatened in the state of Maine, so while we don’t want them impacting our birds, we do want them to succeed. Sara explained that the peregrine’s populations have suffered in Maine in recent years due to DDT pesticide in water causing thinner eggshells and greater chick mortality. For Acadia to protect the falcon’s numbers from decreasing anymore, their biggest mission has been to decrease human disturbance of the birds, which can cause the peregrines to abandon their nests or result in eggs rolling out of their nests and getting damaged by the rocky terrain below. So remember to pay attention to signs telling you where you shouldn’t be – let’s protect these beautiful birds as we try to get Maine’s natural ecological system conserved and thriving from every angle, corner, and species!
Peregrine falcon, taken by “phoca2004” on Flickr, available under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Tune in next time to hear about GPS tagging of our terns, as well as its usage for the research of our professor Tasha Gownaris and student Logan Becker! Until then, stay groovy and keep enjoying the summer sun!
Leah
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