Threatened Seabirds Get a Life Raft in Maryland

July 17, 2023 12:03 AM

Threatened Seabirds Get a Life Raft in Maryland. Scientists don bike helmets and dodge bird poop to babysit endangered terns out at sea.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (3 comments total)

Forgot my hat one day and had a Tern draw blood while rowing. Not a popular bird near boaters, they also dive bomb with poop and are pretty accurate. And love to poop where they sit. A truly beautiful bird. But serious poop.
posted by sammyo at 6:12 AM on July 17, 2023

I'm impressed by the numbers. 155 nests on that little platform!
posted by tavella at 9:14 AM on July 17, 2023

What they missed in the article, which is a bit important, I think.
Terns don't have a "nest" that you might think of as some sort of structure. It is literally a "scrape" in the ground, just like you might make sliding your shoe across the sand. The terns might use a pebbles or shells to add a little support for the eggs. The eggs are literally just sitting there, mostly in the open.
Least Terns and Snowy Plovers are endangered in California because practically any human activity will destroy nests and eggs, on top of what natural predators will do. Just walking down a beach where tern nests are can destroy nests, or, in the worst case, cause the terns to abandon their nests, eggs and young. So, most of the tern nest "protection", like these floating rafts, are small enclosures (often fenced in where I see them in Socal).
posted by pthomas745 at 10:05 AM on July 17, 2023