Common Terns now with chicks at the Oysterbeds

Tuesday 08 June

Another update from Hayling Oysterbeds! Common Terns have now started hatching their eggs, the first yesterday morning, and this evening there are at least five pairs with young. Being so small they are easily brooded by their parents (usually the female) and not easy to detect unless you watch them for long periods or chance upon a chick actually poking their heads out from underneath the adult. They do sit differently as well, with wings slightly looser to the body and tail held more horizontally. Lots of squirming about by the adult is also a good indication, although sometimes they are quite fidgety while incubating eggs. Two of the pairs I saw with young this evening are between markers A and B so should provide good views from the seawall path for those with binoculars and exceptional views for those using a telescope. There are now a total of 78 nesting pairs on the lagoon islands. The increase in numbers since last week is perhaps likely to be a result of second nesting attempts by those which had early failures through tidal flooding out on the main harbour islands (some nested too low on the shingle beaches). Will we get to 80 pairs I wonder? That’s about 50% or so of the current total Langstone Harbour breeding population.

Yesterday I witnessed a Mediterranean Gull take a misplaced egg from the South Island and then eat it nearby (there was a fully-formed chick inside...nice!). I actually thought it had taken the first tern chick as that’s where the egg was picked up from but it hadn’t (although I would say that I can’t actually say whether the egg was a tern or gull egg – I think the latter but who knows - apart from their slightly smaller size and different shape the eggs of common terns are often very similar in appearance to gull eggs). A pair of adults was patrolling/quartering over the colony later. That’s not good news for the terns as last year such activity heralded the start of a period of chick predation by one individual Mediterranean Gull.

The pair of Little Terns nesting on the new shingle island at the north end of the reserve recently failed but may hopefully try again. Certainly they are still in the area. Another bird is regularly coming to fish in the western corner of the lagoon. It's a distinctive individual as it has a displaced secondary feather in its left wing and provides some awesome views if you watch from near the low wooden rails at the end of the seawall path. I think it must be a bird nesting on the main harbour islands as yesterday it left the lagoon, with caught fish, in that direction at least twice. At other times it was just fishing for itself.