Volunteers help threatened bird species with parenting on the St. Lawrence
Apr. 16—CLAYTON — Six volunteers, armed with hundreds of feet of spooled wire, a dozen nesting boxes and a family of bird decoys, hopped on a boat Tuesday morning to help protect a threatened species.
That species is the common tern, a small, migratory waterbird with a gray back, white underbelly, deeply forked white tail and a glossy black cap and nape.
Leading the excursion was Thousand Islands Land Trust and Save the River, nonprofits installing their annual gull exclusion grid on a small area of exposed rock called Eagle Wing shoals in the St. Lawrence River near the shore of the village of Clayton.
Common terns, on New York's threatened species list, have many predators, including gulls, herons, hawks, foxes, raccoons and minks.
TILT membership coordinator Kate Breheny said that the terns require some assistance with their parenting to keep those predators at bay.
"The common tern loves low rocky areas to nest. We always like to say they are notoriously bad parents because they find the worst habitat possible to nest. But we do our best to make it work for them," she said.
The program, which has been ongoing for 20 years, seems to be working.
"Every year we have seen an increase in tern population overall, in the number of breeding pairs, compared to the last," said Daniel Bellinger, education coordinator for Save the River. "So hopefully that trend continues, and I think with the community's support, we'll get there."
Save the River will be looking for that support from the community in mid-August, when the tern chicks have fledged, and the organization begins monitoring them. Volunteers are needed for site checks once a week.
"We'll do an analysis of how many breeding pairs there are at each site. We will monitor for any deaths — how much mortality there has been. Last year we had an issue with owls, specifically one owl, and an eagle, and a couple raccoons," Bellinger said.
The grids are installed at six locations. Two of the sites, Eagle Wing shoals and Tidd Island, are owned by TILT. The other four locations are on navigation cells that the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. has allowed them to use.
To create the grids, steel rods are screwed into pre-drilled holes in the rock. Galvanized wire is then attached to the rods, running north to south, while polypropylene wire is positioned east to west, forming a grid-like pattern. The grid is designed to create holes just big enough for Common Terns to navigate through, but small enough to keep predatory birds out.
Emma Dundon, Clayton, walked along the tall rock surrounded by bright blue-green water, unspooling wire as she went. Dundon recently became a year-round resident on the river, which gives her more opportunities to volunteer.
"Now we get to be involved in all the early season, and late season stuff," she said.
Dundon, who has a "love" for birds, wants to continue assisting with the project.
"We are hoping to be able to be involved in monitoring this site," she said.
In addition to birds, she also has a love for people.
"I love it that everyone has come out to help, and there's a lot of new people. It's exciting to know that there are more and more people interested in doing this kind of thing," she said. "And I love the variety of ages and abilities — and we just get out and do it anyway. It's a perfect day for it."
