Quiet skies over Seaton

One last log from the little tern nesting site at Seaton Carew…

“It just took a skitter-flight!”

I wasn’t surprised that it was Tony who saw the fledgling’s first meaningful attempt at flight. A daily presence on the volunteer warden team, his deep affection for these birds and his hundreds of hours of experience have heightened his attention to their shapes, movements and behaviours. He and warden Emma had been conducting one the the regular sector-by-sector counts of adults and chicks, moving methodically from marker post to marker post, surveying the intervening ground in both directions to cover all angles. I had been tagging along beside them, observing, and had still barely noticed the fledgling testing its wings.

All three of us immediately searched it out; and found it, wings spread, catching the edge of the wind like a child’s kite seeking uplift from the sand. A raise, a rise, and suddenly – a full lift! In just one second it was airborne, angling a low slicing flight over the top of the protective fence and away to the shore beyond. The definitive change from vulnerable fledgling to self-sufficient juvenile adult had happened right before our eyes, a moment that felt so miraculous that tears came to us all. In this difficult breeding season, plagued by kestrel predation, every one of these flights becomes more precious than ever…and to see a first flight happen is an unbelievable moment of grace.

I wrote that journal entry just over two weeks ago, after a visit to touch base with the terns before I went away for a week. I was scheduled to volunteer three more times this month and was looking forward to seeing more juveniles take to the skies, but by the time I returned the entire colony had fledged and begun its beach-hopping journey back to Africa. Accelerated by the kestrel attacks, chicks had gained their independence as quickly as possible, some exiting the breeding ground to take their chances further along the shingle outside what had become something of a raptor buffet. By the end of the season, a hungry and entitled kestrel had taken to walking through the half-pipes intended as chick shelters, looking confused when their ready-meals proved absent.

But although the predation was persistent, it did not continue at the same shocking levels seen by the team in those first few dreadful days. After the initial terrified paralysis had worn off the flock, the little terns rallied their defenses and once again took after their attacker in huge shrieking mobs. Attempts by the kestrel became less frequent, and less certain of a result, thanks to the heroic and exhausting efforts of these tiny birds. Where once there seemed a possibility of total chick loss, there now is the probability that around 70 new fledglings are out there in the world.

I say probability because exact numbers, never 100% certain, were harder to come by this year than usual. Ringing chicks involves entering the breeding ground and disturbing the brooding mothers, and although it doesn’t physically harm them it does cause alarm, stress, and defensive flying. With stress levels already so high among the birds because of the continued predation, ringing was kept to a minimum this year. Numbers were taken through heat-camera spot counts at night, and daytime observation with numbers extrapolated across sectors. These extrapolated numbers suggest 211 chicks hatched, with only 67 achieving adulthood. We know that one of ‘our’ ringed juveniles was spotted at Spurn Head, a shingle peninsula and nature reserve at the mouth of the Humber, but there are a good few birds that can’t be tracked and are now flying ringless into their precarious futures.

By the time I returned, the only bird visible on site was one ringed plover on her fifth week brooding evidently dead eggs. I watched her fuss and shuffle around her scrape, and by the following day she too was gone. The cedar fence now squares off nothing, the air above it is still and silent. Their departure has come even sooner than it did last year, which was also counted as an early farewell. The fence will remain until early August, but for now all that remains is to litter-pick the site, celebrate seventy beautiful new birds in the world, and wait for April to come again so we can see – will the terns return for a seventh year?

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