Seaside bathers anywhere this week will probably have seen herring gulls beating past them over the water, and black-and-white oystercatchers — or “sea magpies” — piping along the water’s edge. Some will also have seen a less common bird hovering over the sea — a little tern, or more likely two of them.
They are summer visitors that nest in small colonies on many British beaches. You hear them coming along with their sharp “kip, kip” calls, then you see them just offshore, passing with a light, flicking flight, or stopping to fish. They hover, drop a little way, hover again, then plunge. They are very white birds, apart from their black caps and yellow beaks, and they are sometimes quite hard to see in the flickering white light above the sea on a brilliantly sunny day. In my experience, they often fish in pairs.
They nest on sandy or shingle beaches, and are very vulnerable birds. Their scrape with two or three eggs in it is generally not far above the high tide mark, and storms can wash the eggs away, while high winds can cover them with sand. At some colonies, conservationists have little by little moved the eggs up the beach, without the terns objecting.
Wanderers along the beach — or rampaging motorcyclists — can easily fail to see the eggs and crush them, because they are so well camouflaged. The chicks are in danger for the same reason — though of course the camouflage does help to protect them against marauding gulls and crows. In some places, you will find wardens alerting visitors to the presence of the nesting terns and asking them to avoid the nests. In other places, temporary fences — even electric fences — are erected to protect the colony.
Like other terns, the little terns will also take action to defend their nests themselves. They will fly up together and mob a herring gull that comes sneaking over, and they will swoop fiercely over the heads of humans or over dogs — sometimes releasing a jet of liquid droppings on to an intruder.
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A lot of care has been taken of little tern colonies by local birdlovers in recent years, and it has certainly helped the species. In America, where little terns are also found (though there they are called “least terns”), they have taken to nesting on the flat roofs of coastal buildings, and one wonders if our little terns will get the same idea. It would benefit them if they did.
I like the little terns and associate them in my mind with some of the summer flowers of the seashore — yellow horned poppies, restharrow and the bright blue viper’s bugloss. The largest colonies are in Norfolk at Blakeney and Great Yarmouth, in Suffolk at Minsmere, and in Hampshire at Langstone Harbour.
WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR
Birders Straggling flocks of lapwings are returning to arable fields.
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Twitchers Paddyfield warbler, Unst, Shetland; Arctic warbler, Fair Isle, Shetland; Caspian tern, Hickling Broad, Norfolk; Terek sandpiper, Cemlyn Lagoon, Anglesey; night heron, St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly; Wilson’s petrel, Bishop Rock, Isles of Scilly.
Details from Birdline, 0906 8700222 (60p a min) www.birdingworld.co.uk; www.rspb.org.uk
derwent.may@thetimes.co.uk