A Smattering of Updates – EBI

Hello once again from the Brothers! I am sure many of you are wondering how Reggie is doing with his harem of decoys. Well exciting news; the other day Reg was spotted presenting a nice big fish to a real live lady tern! Unfortunately having spent so long with the decoys Reg forgot his manners and was a little too insistent our new lady tern take his fish. She flew off, but not to worry, she was back the next day so Reg has an opportunity to try again.

An example of a chick who had a little too much rock gunnel.

In the area of guillemot chick checks we have chicks from two days old weighing in at 37g to Alfonso a tubby 27 day old chick at 345g. There is quite a size difference between some of our chicks which their parents do not seem to take that into account. In taking measurements on our two day old chicks we found that half of the size of the chick could be accounted for by its crop that was stuffed full of delicious nutritious rock gunnel. The poor chick looked as though he wished he would have stopped eating rock gunnel long before he had. We all feel for you little chick!

A Leach’s storm petrel, presented here as a popsicle bird.

We at the Brothers are very pleased to announce that we have a Leach’s storm petrel who has decided to take up residence on Western Brothers. The Leach’s Storm Petrel is nocturnal. We have heard them calling several times during the night but until now we have not been able to find if they have actually been nesting here. Our petrel was incubating a single egg deep inside a burrow of loose dirt. Storm petrel’s have a very distinctive odor which you may be able to smell at the entrance of the burrow if it is active. The odor is not entirely unpleasant as they smell very much like old books.

One last update for you. We have finally found some young Savannah sparrows. We had known that they were breeding here but we had not been able to find a successful nest until now. As you can see at this age they are almost perfect spheres with over-sized mouths. Adorable!

Savannah sparrow sphere with giant mouth.

~SK

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That’s all folks!

We are packing our gear and cleaning the cabin!  Jennie and I head back to the mainland today and we wanted to give you one last update on our season.

We crossed off each day after we finished the dinner dishes. Its wild to think that its all over for 2011...

Census

The Gulf of Maine Seabird Working Group (GOMSWG) census was started on June 17, 2011, and finished on June 20, 2011.  The Tern nest count for the census was 484, with a Lincoln Index of 1.029, resulting in a corrected total of 498 Tern nests on the North End of Metinic.  This represents about two thirds of last year’s population.  Common Tern nests were marked with a blue flag, while Arctic Tern nests were marked with a red flag.  On the NE Point we identified 307 of 498 nests (61% of NE Point colony).  We counted 122 ARTE, 185 COTE nests.  We estimated that the colony was comprised of 40% Common Terns, 60% Arctic Terns. The South End of the island is privately owned and was surveyed by boat, 2 pairs of Terns were present, but no nests were confirmed.

Productivity

Fledging/reproductive success was low this year for Arctic Terns (under the 1 chick/nest USFWS goal), but Common Tern productivity improved from last year and met this goal.  The Arctic Terns suffered from widespread predation events early in the season which resulted in the loss of many eggs and young chicks.

Provisioning

We were able to follow 6 Common tern and 8 Arctic Tern nests throughout the season, for a total of 96 observational hours and 599 feedings. COTEs fed at an average rate of 1.6 feedings/hour, while ARTEs fed at 0.7 feedings/hour.  Both Arctic and Common Terns delivered Atlantic Herring most frequently to their chicks consisting of about 55%and 30% of their diet respectively.  Butterfish was the next most frequent delivery for both species, making up about 30% of deliveries.  Herring deliveries gradually declined and butterfish deliveries gradually increased as the season progressed.  Feedings overall slowed considerably starting in the third week of July especially for Arctic Terns.

Guillemots

32 Guillemot nests were located with a hatch success of 62% and an egg depredation rate of 12.9%.  This data is not a complete set because of the number of guillemots incubating through all checks.  Three adults were still incubating at the end of July, so hatch success could be higher than calculated. 19 chicks were found and 14 were banded, weighed, and measured.

Petrels

53  Leach’s Storm-petrel burrows showed signs of activity (smell, fresh piled dirt, activity at night) early in the season, however only 7 were noted to have eggs or adults present at the end of July.  At the end of our field season, 17 burrows were no longer active and 29 still showed some activity yet nothing could be seen with the burrow scope.

Common Eider

Eider numbers were very low this year averaging only 50-100 eiders at each morning count. Previous years Eiders had averaged between 150 and 300 for morning counts.  Only 30 observations of eider crèches were documented (at least 4 separate crèches).  Five eiders were banded by USGS and MDIFW.

Incidental Sightings

Species highlights: Northern Gannett, American Oystercatcher, Razorbill, Atlantic Puffin, Whimbrel.

We had a tremendous amount of fun out here this summer, and we hope you all enjoyed being able to follow along!  If we peaked your intrest and you would like to get involved or support our efforts makes sure to check out the Friends of Maine Seabird Islands site: 
http://maineseabirds.org/html/home.html
!

Signing off!

-The Metinic Crew

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