Faulkner's Light Brigade Guilford, CT Faulkner's Island & Light House

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Tern Update

June 7, 2012 – Kris Vagos, F&WL

Roseate Tern

Hello Faulkner Island Light Brigade and Friends –

The annual tern season is afoot!

This past Sunday, the research crew began their work on the island.  We arrived early in the morning, pulled into our beautiful new dock (thank you very much for your contribution and hard work on that one), and were greeted by thousands of common terns.  They have a very interesting way of saying hello – they all join together, dive at your head, and defecate on you.  This is actually their way of defending their nests and the colony from predators.  After all to them we are just big predators – it doesn’t matter how much I assure them that we will not hurt their babies.  They remain…very good parents.

This season we will study both species of tern on the island, the very “common” common tern (Sterna hirundo) and the federally endangered roseate tern (Sterna dougallii dougallii).  Both species coexist on the island, yet there are only around a hundred roseate tern compared to thousands of common tern.  A typical field season consists of searching for nests, counting all of the nests on the island, following the eggs until they hatch, banding the chicks, and then following the chicks until they can fly – called “fledging”.  We will survey all of the roseate nests and a small sample of the common tern nests in this manner.

Some interesting things that we saw on the island over the last few days:

Oyster Catcher/Common Tern Nest
  • a nest of 3 common tern eggs and one American Oystercatcher egg – we think the tern is incubating all 4 eggs – we do not know how this happened but suspect that it was an American Oystercatcher nest and the tern took over (they are very aggressive birds) – needless to say we are watching this nest carefully
  • An eastern willet, bird typically found in marshes or on barrier beaches, has taken a liking to the island and is comfortably living among the tern colony – he/she was calling from the top of the outhouse this morning while 2 common tern stood there looking on
  • Other birds that we saw – red-winged blackbird, song sparrow, black-crowned night heron, great egret, dunlin, ruddy turnstone, spotted sandpiper, gulls (herring and great black-backed), double crested cormorant, mallard, and black duck

If you have any questions about what we are doing at Falkner, please email me at Kristina_Vagos@fws.gov, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Stay tuned for the next entry where I will introduce this year’s field staff…

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Getting Ready for the Return of the Terns

by Kris Vagos, Wildlife Biologist, Fish & Wildlife Service

On March 24, 2012, we had twelve volunteers from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and Connecticut College who came out to Falkner Island to help us with tern habitat restoration projects. We left from Guilford at 9am and returned at 3pm. They worked on managing the vegetation by clearing back some of the sumac on the northern tip of the upper part of the island. This year we are going to try to create habitat for roseate terns there – as it was a nesting site historically. Another crew of the volunteers worked on assessing the damage caused by tropical storm Irene to the observation blinds. We found that they are in need of repair and that one of them – which

View from the top of the lighthouse

was located on the north spit – is completely gone. Other projects that were worked on were repainting the radial grid used and cleaning up the top of the island of debris so that we can mow. Everyone had a really good time, and we managed to get a lot of work done. Thank you, US Coast Guard Academy and Connecticut College! We will be returning to the island several times in April and have a few volunteer weekends planned with highschools, boyscout troops, USCGA, and Connecticut College.

*click on the poster to view a larger version of the image.

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US Fish and Wild Life Service

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal agency within the United States Department of the Interior and is trusted to manage the nation’s fish and wildlife resources. The mission of the Service is to “work with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people.”

The National Wildlife Refuge System

Bison eating at Fort Niobrara NWR in NE. (USFWS photo)

From one-ton bison to half-ounce warblers, the National Wildlife Refuge System contains a priceless gift – the heritage of a wild America that was, and is. The mission of the Refuge System is to manage a national network of lands and waters for the conservation, management, and where appropriate, restoration of fish, wildlife and plant resources and their habitat.

The Refuge System maintains the biological integrity, diversity and environmental health of these natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations of Americans.

Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge

The Stewart B. McKinney NWR is comprised of ten different units stretched across the Connecticut shoreline. The headquarters islocated approximately 45 minutes south of Hartford and 30 minutes east of New Haven at historic Salt Meadow in Westbrook, CT.

Yellow Warbler at Trustom Pond NWR in RI. (USFWS photo)

The Salt Meadow NWR was established in 1972 and re-designated by Congress as the Connecticut Coastal National Wildlife Refuge in 1984. The refuge was renamed again in 1987 to honor the late U.S. Congressman Stewart B. McKinney, who was instrumental in its establishment. The ten units of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge span more than 70 miles of Connecticut coastline.

Located in the Atlantic Flyway, the refuge provides important resting, feeding, and nesting habitat for many species of wading birds, shorebirds, songbirds and terns, including the endangered roseate tern. Adjacent waters serve as wintering habitat for brant, scoters, American black duck and other waterfowl. Overall, the refuge encompasses over 800 acres of barrier beach, tidal wetland and fragile island habitats.

The Salt Meadow Unit, in Westbrook, CT, and the Falkner Island Unit, three miles off the coast of Guilford, CT, have both been designation as an “Important Bird Area” by the National Audubon Society.

Many of the refuge’s units are open to the public and they offer opportunities in wildlife observation, photography, environmental education, natural and cultural resources interpretation and other public uses.

Falkner Island Unit

Rocky shores, shrub lands, and grasses cover this five area island, located three miles off the coast of Guilford.  From early May through early August, Falkner Island is home to more than 95 percent of the nesting common terns (over 2500 pairs) in Connecticut. The island is also the site of the only roseate tern (a Federally endangered species) colony in Connecticut. Due to these distinctions, Falkner Island was designated an Important Bird Area by Audubon Connecticut in 2001.

A common tern nest at Faulkner Island (photo by Paul J. Fusco/ CT DEEP Wildlife Div.)
A common tern in flight at Faulkner Island. (photo by Paul J. Fusco/ CT DEEP Wildlife Div.)

 

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