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Least Terns at the Emerald Isle Food Lion



On May 11th Shantanu Phukan and I got permission from
the manager of the Food Lion at Emerald Plaza, Emerald
Isle, NC to go up on the flat roof covered with small
white stones to count the Least Terns.  We estimated
320 adults, all in breeding plumage, and saw that many
were protecting the small speckled eggs in crude
"scrapes" on the roof.

On Wednesday, June 11th I was back on Emerald Isle and
once again got permission from the manager to go up on
the roof, hopefully to count the baby chicks.  Wow! 
There were at least 195 young terns!  There were large
groups of chicks running or standing in bunches along
the edges of the roof, perhaps because there may have
been some shade.  The roof has a two-foot tall wall,
so there was no danger of them falling off.  I counted
180 chicks in the groups along the wall.  In addition,
I could count at least 10 baby terns that were too
young to move about and were still being sheltered by
the adults at the "scrapes."  One adult tern was
trying to shelter three babies that couldn't have been
more than a day old.  The others were all single
babies.

Most confusing, there were also five juveniles
scattered among the adult terns.  These juveniles
looked exactly like the drawing in Sibley that is
labelled "Juvenile (July - Sept)."  These were much
larger than the chicks along the wall, and had almost
reached adult size.  These must just have been five
terns that were born particularly early (but not
before May 11th).

I also counted 190 adult terns, all in full breeding
plumage.  Some were arriving with small fish, so I
assume there may have also been many other adults (at
least another 130 or so)out fishing at the time. 

I looked around briefly (trying not to disturb the
birds too much), but saw no signs of chick mortality,
although they must have been pretty thirsty up there
on the hot roof.

Alan Johnston
Chapel Hill, NC
Email: alanj46@yahoo.com

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