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Royal & Sandwich tern populations in MD, VA & NC: a current article.

From:

Harry Armistead

Reply-To:

Harry Armistead

Date:

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:02:51 +0000

Dear All,
 
This message was tailored to the interests of the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory (C.V.W.O.) but it does contain Maryland information - has some on topic heft - and I hope will be of interest.  John Weske has sent me a PDF file which I can forward to anyone interested (I don't THINK this violates copyright).  If so contact me offline at:  harryarmistead at hotmail dot com
 
Best to all. - Harry Armistead.           
 
C.V.W.O. STAFF AND OTHERS’ INVOLVEMENT WITH TERN STUDIES.
            C.V.W.O. “graduates” and advisors are key persons in a recent article in Waterbirds, vol. 32, no. 1, 2009, pp. 54-63:  “Population trends in Royal and Sandwich terns along the Mid-Atlantic seaboard, USA, 1975-2005,” by Steven D. Emslie, John S. Weske, Micou M. Browne, Sue Cameron, Ruth Boettcher, David F. Brinker, and Walker Golder,.
            Sue has been hawk counter and trapper.  Ruth is still an advisor with a special interest in colonial waterbirds, plovers, and oystercatchers.  Cited twice in the list of references is Deniz Aygen, who has also been a hawk trapper.  Micou was a participant in the Cape Charles Christmas Bird Count in its early years, when, once, he saw and described very well a Philadelphia Vireo, an astounding find in late December.  
            John Weske was also a participant in Cape Charles’ early years.  Dave Brinker has a long term interest in colonial waterbirds.  One project of his has been to band Brown Pelican chicks in MD and the central Chesapeake Bay islands, where over 15,000 have been tagged, 3,331 in 2008 alone (including 1,574 in one day at Holland Island, MD, with several hundred missed [but banded later] due to our running out of bands), with John as his principal assistant bander.
            The tern article is based mostly on analysis of John’s epic banding exploits involving hundreds of volunteer helpers, state and federal biologists, and interns as well as other banders for decades.  It’s been my privilege to assist John and David with a few of these banding forays, mostly as a bird catcher but sometimes as a bander.
            The article does not total the number of terns banded, perhaps out of modesty, but here those are (numbers do not include any banded after 2005, after which banding has been greatly restricted due to the conservative concerns of some state agencies):
            Royal Tern:  359,744 banded in NC, 104,931 in VA, and 7,985 in MD.  TOTAL: 472,660.     
            Sandwich Tern:  61,973 in NC, 1,245 in VA, and 2 in MD.  TOTAL:  63,200.
            There have been thousands of recoveries of these banded birds, at least one of them a Royal Tern from the stomach of a shark.  Some of the terns have been recovered on the Pacific coast of Middle America.  One hopes there will be further analysis of this treasure trove of data.  One observer at a bridge in Florida has been able to discern band numbers on dozens of free-flying Royal Terns when they come to rest on the railings.  
            One of the values of banding these crested tern species is that the chicks form a crèche or sort of herd that can easily be corralled in its entirety into chicken wire enclosures, where, in a few hours, every one of them can be banded, thus furnishing an exact count of colony size.  Note is also made of tern chicks too small to be banded or of unhatched eggs, most of these dealt with on follow-up visits.  
            During a couple of recent years an outlier colony has become established on Champagne Island, Hereford Inlet, near Cape May, NJ, the farthest north of any colony ever.  In 2008 400 adult birds were present producing 125 young in spite of erosion caused that year by the Mother’s Day (May 11) storm (cf. North American birds, vol. 62, no. 4, 2009, page 540):  “On 26 Jul, an ad. Sandwich Tern was observed with a small chick at this colony,” apparently a first nesting record for the state, and photographed by Kevin Karlson, who has been a keynote speaker at the Eastern Shore of Virginia Birding Festival. 
            This article documents considerable fluctuations in both the numbers of terns and the locations of their colonies.  Initially they increased, then decreased, and may have increased some in the last years of the study.  Central Chesapeake Bay colonies of royals increased for a while and currently there may not be any.
            Best regards to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia (for the time being, at least).
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