Least Tern Chicks and Fledglings Everywhere

Great photograph of Black Skimmer, Least Tern, and Common Tern close together.
 (photo by Camille Daniels) 

When visiting the south end of Wrightsville Beach don’t miss the hundreds of Least Terns. Many people’s eyes skip over them because of how well they blend into the shells on the sand in the front area of the posting. We have many chicks to show beachgoers and fledglings practicing their flight skills. Incubation has continued and we now have more newly hatched and adorable Least Tern chicks on the beach.

Photo by Jan LeFrancois

Photo by Jan LeFrancois

Photo by Hannah White

Several great shots of Least Terns chasing ghost crabs away.

Photo by Camille Daniels

Photo by Camille Daniels

Bird flight is an instinctive behavior and what we are seeing with the Least Tern fledglings recently is the strengthening of their wings and jumping. We have noticed the parent birds hovering above the chicks with a fish and not feeding a chick…perhaps to encourage the chick to jump and exercise their wings especially on windy days. We witnessed a fledgling’s low flight out of the posting and counted 31 fledglings.

The Least Tern fledglings are becoming stronger flyers and beginning to practice the hover and plunging action needed to feed themselves. Parents will encourage this activity and stay close by and will also continue to feed their young during migration until they develop this skill and can feed themselves.

photo by Hannah White

We have a large number of Black Skimmers, and many are doing courtship behaviors. These include fish presentations, scraping (making their nest), pair bonding displays (coordinated movements and standing near each other), and actually mating. Once a pair has eggs in their scrape, you can watch them incubate by sitting down in the scrape and swap out incubation shifts. If all goes well, we should see some chicks in the next week or two.

On Sunday, 6/22 at 2:30 PM there were 140 Skimmers nesting and 156 Skimmers standing by the water.

Photo by Barb Ledoux

The Common Terns have nested close to the sound side posting, so beachgoers are encouraged to walk close to the water and not close to the posting as the Common Terns have been aggressively protecting their nests and eggs by diving and pooping on anyone who walks by. Not pleasant at all! 

We have 14 pairs, which makes 28 adult Common Terns to go after someone! One of the Common Terns has migrated here from Argentina! They are the colony’s longest-distance migrants!

The American Oystercatcher pair EMY and her unbanded mate are nesting again! We are so impressed that they are trying again! This is their third or fourth try. We have observed incubation activities for approximately two weeks, so they have about a week and a half left, as nests usually incubate for 24-26 days.