It’s been a beautiful week on Metinic, with the warm sun providing for excellent hatching weather. More tern chicks show up every day in our plots and some of the older ones are getting their first wing feathers. Of the dozens of chicks in our plots, the color and pattern can vary considerably from sandy tan chicks with only a few black spots to almost snowy white speckled with dark streaks.
We call these arctic tern chicks the “Silver and Gold Siblings”
We made the most of the weather early in the week to continue our trapping efforts, with a special focus on one particular bird. In 2010, Refuge staff placed geolocator data loggers on the legs of several arctic terns to track their annual journey from breeding grounds in Maine to their winter range in the waters around Antarctica. The geolocator measures the amount and timing of sunlight to determine the location of the bird. Most of the loggers were retrieved in 2011 or 2012, but a few were still missing. Luckily, Helen and I spotted this bird in May, and figured that it was breeding here. On Wednesday, Refuge staff Brian, Michael, Linda, and Sara came out to the island to locate and catch the bird. Between the six of us, we sat in our five blinds and watched for the bird. We quickly found the bird and its nest, but trapping efforts were to no avail. After a fruitless attempt on Thursday, Brian and Michael came back out on Friday and finally managed to catch the bird after a few hours of waiting with a bow net. It appears that the nest is being attended by three adult terns, which is unusual, but may account for the difficulty of catching the bird if it’s only spending a third of the time on the nest. The geolocator was removed and the bird released. Hopefully, the data on the geolocator can be retrieved and we can see where the bird has been!
The geolocator on the tern’s leg before it was removed
While the Friday tern trapping stint was ongoing, Helen and I went out to check on black guillemot burrows on the northwest side of the island in advance of hatching. June 27th is International Guillemot Appreciation Day, traditionally around when the first chick hatches. Guillemots, relatives of puffins, nest in rock crevices all along the Maine coast. We located several rocky burrows with eggs and a few with adults attending. Between the burrows, a few gull chicks were running around near their nests atop the rocks.
An adult black guillemot incubates its eggs in a rock crevice
Herring gull chick. Both herring and great black-backed gulls breed on Metinic.
At the southern end of the cliffs, we were checking a last couple of rocks when we were surprised to find our first guillemot chicks a few days early!
Black guillemot chicks are covered in dark gray downy feathers
Have a happy Guillemot Day!
-Mark
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