“Shady” Business for the Birds: Surveying Shelters for Least Terns

This text was written by 2025 Coastal Outreach Intern, Ben Ellis.

Previous to this summer time, I by no means gave a lot thought to how birds discover shade on scorching seashores. On naked seashores, even a couple of levels could make the distinction for chicks between survival and loss of life.

This previous summer time, working as a Coastal Outreach Intern on the North Shore of Lengthy Island, I had the chance to contribute to a examine on Least Tern chick’s shelter use. 

Audubon’s coastal workers in New York has been monitoring nesting shorebirds on Lengthy Island for over a decade, together with Least Tern colonies alongside the North Shore at Stehli Seashore. The examine would assess using shelters by Least Tern chicks, and the frequency of use, to assist in defending them from elevated temperatures and predators.

With the data collected, our coastal workers would decide if the presence of shelters in Least Tern colonies helps improve productiveness (their capability to efficiently increase chicks) at choose websites.

Teen volunteers on the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary and Audubon Center deliberate and constructed 22 open chook shelters which had been categorized into three shapes.  The three various kinds of shelters—field shelters, triangular shelters, and prolonged shelters—had been put in within the protected Least Tern colony space at Stehli Seashore to supply shelter from the solar for the Least Tern chicks. 

The volunteers and I noticed how the chicks used every shelter kind to see in the event that they confirmed a transparent choice.  The Audubon heart equipped us with brilliant orange luggage that had been ready with provides wanted to survey the colony.  We got a map of the colony with numbered shelters marked, binoculars, and a surveying sheet to document any observations.

Every day of surveying, we recorded the time that we performed the examine, the temperature of the seashore through the examine, and if there have been any chicks utilizing the shelters, what number of chicks had been utilizing them and of which shelter kind. 

One reminiscence stands out vividly: I bear in mind intently watching a small, fluffy, grey Least Tern chick clumsily waddling within the open dunes, sprinting often in direction of shady patches of grass.  I used to be in awe once I witnessed the chick strategy considered one of our field shelters and duck its head into the shade.  I centered my binoculars onto the father or mother diving all the way down to perch itself on prime of the field, noticing its watchful and protecting eyes gaze out into the far distance.

It was a rewarding solution to spend the summer time, having fun with the seashore whereas contributing to the wellbeing of our native shorebirds.  

All through our time surveying, we needed to overcome quite a few challenges.  After a stormy evening, we noticed that a number of of the wood shelters had been destroyed and scattered throughout the seashore shore. The following week, we noticed components of the protecting fence had been damaged, and a beachgoer shared with me that he observed folks getting into the protected colony’s fenced off nesting space.  

Later, we returned to Stehli Seashore to assist restore the shelters and the fencing. Although we had been confronted with many difficulties, we labored laborious to surmount them. I’m extraordinarily grateful to Audubon for the chance to expertise conservation firsthand and see the true influence it might probably have.