Gooday birders,
During December and January this year a group of Black naped Terns
nested on the long sandspit of Stone Island, just offshore from Bowen
Queensland, for International subscribers the location is the "Top of
the Whitsundays".
David James reported sighting imm.BN Terns early in 1998 and thought
there was a possibility of a mainland breeding site. The area the birds
nested would be about 5Km SE of this site where James observed the young
birds.
What I found interesting was the adult birds behaviour during the
nesting period. Quite a few adult birds would fly from the sand spit and
fly that low over the water that they almost touched it, they always
done two or three circuits then returned to the nest site. At this time
the days were extremely hot so you can imagine the temperature of the
sand spit. I concluded that the birds were cooling themselves as none of
the birds were feeding, during the time that they were absent from the
nest Silver Gulls would move in and actually attack and succeed in
getting a chick, this caused great commotion.
With hot days continuing for a further fortnight I would have expected
the nesting site to be decimated, but actually they have succeeded in
raising a number of young. All observations were from a dinghy and I was
pleased that the locals gave the island a wide berth during this nesting
period.
Jon Wren
PO Box 868
Bowen
Queensland
Australia 4805 Phone 07 4786 2614H or
Visit the birds of Bowen, click Tourism
www.lgaq.asn.au/bowen.nsf
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