Monday, July 25, 2016

Least Tern Colony News

Look what I found the first thing on my survey of Saturday morning July 23. 
This chick took me by surprise.
I thought that we would be through with the Least Tern project by July 19th, but these birds won’t quit. They have found a near perfect nesting area and they are going for with all the gusto they can muster. Last week, there were a little over 80 birds still in the two enclosures. 

Adult Least Tern is flying by as a Least Tern chick sits in the shade of a Russian thistle.

The Wilson's Plovers appeared to be finished.  Boy! was I wrong.
Isn't this Wilson's Plover just cute?


Granted there were fewer terns this week. I counted around 50 terns inside the enclosure.  There were more chicks than last week.  I watched as one Least Tern worked on a scrape.
















To top that one Wilson’s Plovers was sitting tight on a nest. 

Live and learn. 


Thursday, July 7, 2016







The Beach Bird Stewards were at Georgia's Department of Natural Resources Beach Week on St. Simons Island, GA June 29.

We had a table with information about Wilson's Plovers & the large Least Tern Colony at Gould's Inlet. 






Thanks to Devon, Linda, Sarah,  Mary Jo, Marge, and Marty for helping the birds.

Saturday, July 2, 2016

The Secret Life of Least Terns

Once a year for the last 16 years, my friend, Melanie Kist comes to Jekyll with her family. She is a gifted photographer. I often used her photographs in my bird conservation work.




This year I invited her to see the Least Tern colony. Here are a few of her photos. 







They give us a peek at what these terns are doing on the beach.
Don’t they just melt your heart?
These are few more pictures of the secret lives Least Terns.
 Thank Melanie