Thought I'd share a recent wildlife experience.
For about a month in early summer I monitored and photographed a colony of nesting Least Terns. I estimate that there were about 30 and 40 nesting pair in a fairly small area. The area is protected and posted so I always made sure to stay my distance and lay low so not to disturb or frighten the birds. For the final two weeks I focused my attention on a single pair of Terns that had two eggs in their nest. The female and male would take shifts sitting in the hot sun shading the eggs and keeping them at optimal temperature. The elements, night predators and humans are the biggest threat to the eggs. The tiny speckled eggs blend very well with the nesting grounds and surrounding area so people walking can unknowingly crush the tiny eggs. This is why the area is posted and for the most part its obeyed but the birds will nest outside the protected space so caution is needed when walking about. The nests are simple pockets in the sand and broken shells so they're not obvious nests. I witnessed a lot of interesting behavior and saw my first ghost crab meets Terns moment this year, which was incredible action that I had never seen before.
I was expecting to see a slow drop in the nesting activity and it did start to slow with quite a few fledglings nearby being fed. I was shocked early one morning when I arrived and discovered that every Tern had gone, there wasn't one to be seen anywhere. I walked around outside the protected area to look at the nest I had been watching so faithfully and I was happy to see that both eggs were gone. All the hard work that the nesting pair had invested had paid off, I was really happy but surprised that not a single Tern was around. Then I looked to the left of the nest and saw a tiny chick, face down in the sand and not moving. I stared at it carefully and noticed it was breathing. Then I started to try and make sense of this. My guess was that this chick hatched much later than the other egg, probably several days later. It's possible for eggs to be abandoned if hatching is delayed long enough. Since there were no Terns around I started thinking the worst, this fragile little bird is here all alone and will likely die from exposure, dehydration and/or starvation. I felt terrible for it. All I could do was wait, watch and hope that the parents would return to check the nest one more time. So I waited and photographed the tiny little cotton ball, no bigger than the end of my thumb. I thought to myself that I may be the only living thing that will be witness that this tiny bird ever existed. It was sad and it was inspiring to see this tiny life fighting for survival, struggling so hard to stand. It started by just trying to lift its tail end up, each time pushing a bit harder and just when it was close it would tumble over on its back. This created a new struggle just to get back on its belly. It's tiny eyes weren't open yet at first but gradually they were starting to open, they were getting coated with sand as it rolled around. This went on for two and a half hours. By now my hope for the survival of this tiny bird was fading fast. The chick was on a mission to stand for a fate that wasn't looking good. I decided it deserved a name, silly but the poor thing was hanging on by a thread and refused to quit. I decided its name should be Hope. THEN, in the distance I heard a faint call of a Tern. As it got louder it was clearly a Least Tern. I waited thinking to myself, "please be this bird's mother". Like magic the Tern appeared, hovering over the nesting spot. YES!, she had come back!! She landed and walked over to the chick and in an instant all was right again. I photographed the two of them and then slowly backed away and headed homeward. I thought about that morning on my hike back and figured that the two adult Terns were likely taking care of their first hatched somewhere back in the marsh. I'm constantly struck by the similarities to humans in the wildlife I photograph. Physical appearance may be drastically different but behavior, especially at reproduction time, is much more similar than most would think. The drive to perpetuate a species is powerful, sometimes the process can be disturbing to watch. More often than not it's up lifting and replenishes hope for the health of wildlife on this planet. My time with the Least Terns was a lot of fun, I'll be posting more photos as I get them finished. Here are the images from my morning with The Last Tern, Little Hope.
