This week has seen some fantastic weather with the Sun making an appearance and shining bright, so what a great opportunity for our reserve team to get out on the water with our armada of tern rafts. They were spotted on Tuesday and Wednesday up to their waists in the main lake.
Obviously it wasn’t the weather that prompted the work but the arrival of our common terns.
The terns have been steadily arriving over the last month from their wintering grounds in West Africa, to breed on our islands here at Saltholme. Once they’ve all arrived they form one of the largest inland breeding colonies of common terns in the country.
The tern rafts create a safe and secure area for the terns to nest and hatch their young away from the dangers of black-headed gulls, and a variety of mammals.
The rafts are floated out in a short window of time late enough so as not to encourage gulls to nest on them but early enough so that the terns see them as an attractive nesting site.
This year we’ve a new raft that's' been funded by Northumbrian water, this has been floated out to join the rest of the rafts that were funded by Teesside Environmental Trust and Teesmouth Bird Club.
Elsewhere on the reserve we’ve had some great sightings:
On Saturday we had quail that were both heard and seen around the Haverton area.
Saltholme pools hide has given some great views of Temminck’s stint, ruff and spoonbill over the last 7 days.