Rockabill - Week Two - Numerous nestboxes!

The past week has been extremely busy! Since our last post we have cut the last of the Tree Mallow and spent our time organising nest boxes - some go into very precise locations to give continuity to our detailed nest monitoring in the various 'study plots' around the island. After that, it's a matter of filling nearly all available space to accomodate our burgeoning Roseate Tern population! Each box is placed firmly into the ground, with a stone weight put on top to ensure it doesn't budge for the next few months!

Roseate Terns making an early claim to the nestboxes (E. Tiernan, Photo taken under NPWS license)

Now that the manual labour is out of the way, the nest monitoring begins. We have divided the island into different study sites amongst ourselves. Like previous years, this consists of morning and afternoon nest checks to accurately age eggs and hatchlings, identify chicks to their parents and record the breeding success of the parents associated with each nest for both Roseate and Common Terns within our designated sites.

Roseate terns standing on their nestboxes (A. McManus, Photos taken under NPWS license)

The Roseate Terns are easily distinguishable with the jet-black beak and are usually observed perched on top of their nest boxes, while Common Terns have orange beaks with a black tip and can be associated with open nests, usually consisting of a small scrape in the ground.

That’s all the news we have for now - we'll have an update on our first eggs very soon!

Andrew & The Rockabill Team.