With a penchant for condo living and a taste for small fish, least terns have taken up residence on most of the area’s large commercial gravel rooftops. From now until
It was the gifts he brought that Carol Otis noticed first, small fishes plucked from the shallows of the Atlantic Ocean and given in courtship to a female least tern.
Otis, an avian enthusiast and recent transplant from Portland, Ore., recognized the endearing mating behavior and began looking for a nesting colony of the state-threatened bird on her daily walks along Delray Beach’s shoreline.
“I asked lots of people, but no one knew,” Otis said.
Then, in late April, she saw them. Tiny least terns the smallest of their species in North America sitting on fragile nests that are no more than scrapes in the sand on the wide-open beach. There were 17.
Mar 15, 2021 4:30 AM Daytona Beach, FL - The goal of the Volusia County Shorebird Partnership is to conserve shorebird and seabird populations but they need the public’s help to make it happen. Jennifer Winters, Volusia County Protected Species Activity Manager, says that the partnership is part of the Florida Shorebird Alliance. She says that nesting shorebird surveys are done all year round. We’d like people to help us identify nesting locations. So if you’re walking on the beach and you see some unusual bird activity. They lay their eggs directly on the sand so we’d want to know where those areas are so we can get out and post them to ensure that they would have a successful chance. Winters said different species have different habitat preferences for their nests so you can find them all over the place. Least terns and Wilson s plover, they’ll nest actually on open beach areas so usually kind of the upper beach area. We’ve had Wilson
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You can help Florida’s nesting waterbirds
As nesting season begins for waterbird species across the state, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is sharing five easy ways that members of the public can help conserve these vulnerable bird species.
Many shorebird and seabird species, such as the least tern, nest directly on beaches across the state where their eggs and chicks are well camouflaged in the sand. Colonies of wading birds, such as herons, will typically nest on mangrove islands off the coast. Biologists stress that the most important thing for waterbirds during nesting season is space. When these birds are disturbed and forced to leave their nests, their eggs and chicks are left vulnerable to heat and predators.