Hey its blawing a hooley out there!
After taking delivery of a large box Dave from campfield proudly produced 20+ resin painted little terns (or least terns if you are being pedantic as they are from America). The aim is to place the fake little terns onto the shingle islands in an attempt to lure any real ones into the area to breed. It’s a technique known as social attraction and seems to have worked in America to lure whole colonies away from certain areas and into others. Anyway it seems worth a try and below is a pair in place!
A mere 20 minutes after putting the decoys out yesterday we were called back into the hide by a helpful person to see what is thought to be one of the first little tern of the season! What a great coincidence. The two we saw seem to be sticking around too as I was in the hide today and they were still there alongside the Sandwich terns.
Oh and I took a wee bit of time to have a look out to sea and managed to catch up with one of my favourites Gannets! You can’t get much better than that.
Cheers
Mhairi
Hi Neil, fingers crossed for the little terns. We have got a few things over the next few years up our sleave to try and get the habitat suitable for them so hope it works. They have been on site regularly and I seem them most days.
i hope it works a few years ago there were 3 species of tern nesting at hodbarrow. sandwich,common and little tern, since the lesser black backed gulls moved in all the terns apart from the common terns are near foulney island.
Neil j Lunn.
Sounds exciting Mha! Little terns and Gannets to boot.