Field Work

 

Note the egg tooth, the white calcareous point on the end of the bill. The egg tooth helps the Common Tern chick break the egg shell and falls off the bill a few days after hatching.

Two common tern chicks.

A Roseate tern chick.

Weighing a recently hatched chick.

On a good Roseate chick check you only see the soles of the checker’s feet.

Removing adult Common Tern from trap.

Bringing terns in for processing.

Recording data on terns in the banding room.

At the end of each trapping session, during “Bingo”, nest numbers written on the bag slips in the field are checked against what has been written on the record sheets in the banding room.

Releasing the terns - the high point after trapping!

Copyright © 2011 Helen Hays