Still going....

Thursday, 05 August

Well, it’s almost the end of the breeding season for the sea birds at Hayling Oysterbeds but not quite! Currently the pair of Common Terns that I featured in my last update still has two half-grown young, while two other pairs are incubating eggs still… Three more young Black-headed Gulls have just made it onto the final total for fledging by this species as they can now fly around. They are of course still begging for food on the lagoon islands, but eventually as the adults bring in food less regularly they will learn to feed for themselves and move on (or follow their parents out to the main harbour).

During the last set of high daytime tides up to 300 Common Terns and 11 Little Terns gathered on the lagoon islands, making for a spectacular site especially when they all wheeled around in response to a passing Peregrine or distant soaring Buzzard. A few Sandwich Terns appeared more occasionally, while a few evenings ago an Arctic Skua flew through the reserve putting everything into temporary flight. These are rare visitors to the harbour (the nearest breeding grounds are in northern Scotland) and in five seasons of being one of the wardens at the Oysterbeds I have never seen one here in the summer. They feed by kleptoparasitism (literally, parasitism by theft). Typically they chase terns and gulls to force them to drop or disgorge their food, their agile and swift flight combined with larger size (compared with the smaller terns) aiding their success rate. The bird at the Oysterbeds was quickly pursued by one of two of the local gulls, and quickly continued on its way over the harbour.

Interestingly it has been suggested that young Oystercatchers can engage in intraspecific kleptoparasitism, steeling food from adults. However, I wonder if some of this can actually be attributed to observations of juveniles staying in the same vicinity as their parents for weeks if not months after their fledging and the loose family group still functioning in terms of the adults still supporting the youngsters? Certainly family groups can still be identified early in the autumn long after fledging has taken place, with the juveniles often begging for food from the adults, often successfully. At first the juveniles will feed exclusively on worms, but many will learn the adult skills of locating and cracking into the shells of crabs, cockles and mussels.

Late display from the Common Terns continues and I managed to capture the following images of some of the posturing the adults get involved in when courting.

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The next update, as the season finishes, may start deviating away from the breeding sea birds so what better way to start than to introduce a good place for seeing our smallest species of owl? The Little Owl is a scarce but well distributed resident breeding species on Hayling Island that can be seen hunting both day and night in the summer. Several pairs occur along the west side of the island, and the billyline track just inland and opposite the Oysterbeds is a good place to look for them. Currently the most regular place for easy views is from the gate on the east side of the track opposite (and just north of) the oysterbeds lagoon. Birds have recently been seen perched in adjacent trees and on the pile of old telegraph poles just in front of the gate. Look more distantly from the track before approaching the gate, as it is easy to flush birds off the lying poles before you see them there!