Morning everyone!
How are you today?
I wanted to share with you some exciting news!
The first of the seasons common terns have been spotted sitting on the rafts!
Common terns nest on the specially designed and built rafts at the reserve. The rafts were designed and built at the reserve by volunteers, and they have been so successful they have been copied all over the country!
The terns will spend summer here - pairing up, laying eggs, rasing the young, and then in August/ September they will leave to spend winter in West Africa.An amazing fact for you - the parents will leave about a month before the babies... which is amazing! The young common terns know how to find their way over to Africa without even being shown by their parents!
Common terns are a lovely silver/ grey bird with a black cap. They can be confused with black headed gulls, the terns are smaller and more delicate. Terns will traditionally nest on shingly beaches, although a number started to move inland and started using gravel pits - which lead the Rye Meads Ringing Group and the volunteers at the reserve to come up with a raft for these lovely nesting birds.
They are fish eaters so look out for them all over the reserve fishing (when we get a few more at the reserve!)
As I write this blog the lovely volunteers are out on the reserve putting the last two rafts out! This sounds quite easy - but spare a thought for the wonderful people who are out there in a boat trying to push them into place!
Over winter we bring the rafts in to give them a good clean (as you can imagine they can get quite messy over a summer!). A few of the rafts are already out, but we kept a couple behind until the terns arrive so we can try to keep them just for the terns - we don't want all the other birds taking over and pushing the terns out!
This picture was taken a couple of years ago, but it give you an idea!