The Nesting Season Offically Ends

This is the last blog post for the season. I've really enjoyed watching the terns, skimmers, oystercatcher, etc as they courted, nested, cared for their tiny chicks, taught their young fledglings to fish and fly, andthen told us goodbye by disappearing. An added bonus was making new friends among the other stewards and sharing our excitment with those walking along the beach.We celebrated with a great "thank you" party for the Wrightsville Beach Bird Stewards.

Here are the last of the skimmer chicks hanging out on the beach during the final Bird Hike on 9/13. 

A lone least tern stopped in to say goodbye.

 

 We're hoping this skimmer chick learns to do more than just stretch its wings!

The fencing came down quickly last Sunday, 9/15, with a large group of volunteers removing the posts and string and then making a last sweep of the area for litter.

And now????

Time to head to the north end of Wrighstville Beach 

where many migrating shore birds are hanging out at Mason Inlet.

and to keep patroling the beaches for fishing line that can get tangled up 

on unsuspecting birds and may cause a bird to lose a leg.

If you are interested in volunteering next year contact Marlene Eader at

marlene.eader@gmail.com. 

And you can continue tracking our oystercatcher (Radar/Oreo) at

 http://oystercatchertracking.org/.

And then there were three....

At our Bird Walk on Friday we saw what we believe are the last of the "chicks" for the season. There were three fledging skimmer chicks near the shore line and about five adults encouraging them to get ready to head south.  There are still some sightings of terns (least, common, royal, sandwich, etc.) but they seem to be isolated cases.  The oystercatchers were nowhere to be seen on Friday but you can track Oreo/Radar at  http://oystercatchertracking.org/

There is one more scheduled Bird Walk this Friday (9/13) leaving from the gazebo at the southern end of Wrightsville Beach at 9 a.m.  And rumor has it that the "fence" is coming down mid-September. After that I will round up the last of my photos for one last blog entry and say goodbye until next year.