Hi Everyone,
Last night we did a count of migratory terns arriving to roost in Noosa, Qld. The vast majority of these birds are Common Terns, but also included are Little Terns and White-winged Black Terns. This confirmed that the migration peak has passed in our area. Unfortunately we only conduct one count each month, limiting our knowledge of the actual peak, but below are some figures going back to Nov, 05, with dates. Note that there was a gap in data collection between January and December 2007, and that we missed a count in March, 2010.
Birds are normally counted on the wing in blocks of 10, so the figures are never exact. Occasionally at peak periods they are counted in blocks of 50s, or even 100s rarely.
Cheers,
Jill
Survey_Date Sum Of Number_Seen 28-Nov-05 2380 14-Jan-06 12560 08-Feb-06 38340 08-Mar-06 14910 12-Mar-06 6020 15-Dec-06 573 15-Jan-07 2050 19-Dec-07 2740 17-Jan-08 2930 21-Feb-08 6650 15-Mar-08 1900 22-Apr-08 765 15-Dec-08 60 12-Jan-09 15030 11-Feb-09 1280 05-Mar-09 7400 09-Apr-09 5150 23-Jul-09 6 21-Aug-09 1 10-Dec-09 1170 18-Jan-10 2454 16-Feb-10 6330 15-Apr-10 3379 20-May-10 369 15-Jun-10 264 12-Jul-10 268 13-Aug-10 385 23-Nov-10 7280 07-Dec-10 11000 27-Jan-11 12830 24-Feb-11 21110 16-Mar-11 7170
Ah, I wondered what those stabbing pains were caused by. They were a bit brutish as well.
Carl Clifford
Yup – one of those days …..”Beware the Ides of March”
Cheers Chris Gregory
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Thanks, Jill, for taking the time to provide a most fascinating explanation.
Best wishes,
Carl (The same Carl that asked the big question – not the other Carl who had the little tern at providing an answer.)
Laurie – Very apt. Tides is right
“There is a tide in the affairs of man, which, taken at the flood, leads onto fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
J Ceasar Act IV,iii
Chris Gregory
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Shorely you mean “Beware the Tides of March”
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Yup – one of those days …..”Beware the Ides of March”
Cheers Chris Gregory
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Sorry Jill, it’s one of those days.
Carl
I knew the answer was out there somewhere
Why didn’t I ask you before, Carl? Cancel the geolocators!
Jill
Jill Dening Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
26° 51′ 41″S 152° 56′ 00″E
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I knew the answer was out there somewhere
Why didn’t I ask you before, Carl? Cancel the geolocators!
Jill
Jill Dening Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
26° 51′ 41″S 152° 56′ 00″E
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Jill,
Perhaps the best answer to where and when they go is that they take Tern about?
Cheers,
Carl Clifford, (diving for fox-hole)
Carl,
You have asked a bigger question than you realise. In short, they are northern hemisphere breeders and they spend the austral summer in the southern hemisphere. Flying through the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, they arrive around November and most are gone by sometime in April.
The Sunshine Coast is a hotspot for migratory terns, but as you can see from the numbers supplied, they have a peak in late summer. We don’t know the answer to the question, “where do they spend the height of the Australian summer” because I have asked many times, and never received a satisfactory answer. If they do spend the summer in Australia, there are no reported concentrations, and the only possibility is that they spread out into very small, unnoticeable groups in southern Australia. Or, it’s possible that they go to Pacific Islands (but where?). However, they pass through the Sunshine Coast region on their way north in late summer early autumn in larger numbers than is the stable summer population.
Because there has been little banding of migratory terns (some Commons flagged orange in Victoria over the years, but no individual marking) we don’t know exactly where our migratory terns breed. They breed in places like eastern China, Japan, the Philippines, and I think Mongolia. However, I’d love to know exactly where they go. We need satellite trackers and in certain cases, perhaps geolocators.
I think there are possibly numerous breeding locations and timetables for the East Asian subspecies of Common Tern (Sterna hirundo longipennis). I have no proof, only questions and hints which lead me to think so.
Nor do we know where the Australian-breeding Little Terns (Sternula albifrons sinensis) go during the austral winter. We know they don’t join the breeders in Japan, which breed during the northern summer. We know this because there has never been a record of an Australian breeder in Japan amongst their Little Terns. The northmost Australian records of this group are my own in Maroochydore, Sunshine Coast in early autumn, and a single record by Clive Minton of a bird seen on Swain Reefs off Qld (or was it the Cap Bunker?) in July, 2000. So we definitely need geolocators for Australian-breeding Little Terns. I think geolocators would be suitable because they tend to return to the same breeding sites.
I should explain for clarity. The subspecies of Little Tern which breeds in Australia during our summer is the same subspecies of Little Tern which breeds in the northern hemisphere during the northern summer. They are different populations, and whilst the two populations mix here in Australia, their breeding habits are out of kilter with each other.
I haven’t gone into it too far, but if anyone wants to ask more questions, that’s OK. It’s rather complicated.
Cheers,
Jill
Jill Dening Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
26° 51′ 41″S 152° 56′ 00″E
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Carl,
You have asked a bigger question than you realise. In short, they are northern hemisphere breeders and they spend the austral summer in the southern hemisphere. Flying through the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, they arrive around November and most are gone by sometime in April.
The Sunshine Coast is a hotspot for migratory terns, but as you can see from the numbers supplied, they have a peak in late summer. We don’t know the answer to the question, “where do they spend the height of the Australian summer” because I have asked many times, and never received a satisfactory answer. If they do spend the summer in Australia, there are no reported concentrations, and the only possibility is that they spread out into very small, unnoticeable groups in southern Australia. Or, it’s possible that they go to Pacific Islands (but where?). However, they pass through the Sunshine Coast region on their way north in late summer early autumn in larger numbers than is the stable summer population.
Because there has been little banding of migratory terns (some Commons flagged orange in Victoria over the years, but no individual marking) we don’t know exactly where our migratory terns breed. They breed in places like eastern China, Japan, the Philippines, and I think Mongolia. However, I’d love to know exactly where they go. We need satellite trackers and in certain cases, perhaps geolocators.
I think there are possibly numerous breeding locations and timetables for the East Asian subspecies of Common Tern (Sterna hirundo longipennis). I have no proof, only questions and hints which lead me to think so.
Nor do we know where the Australian-breeding Little Terns (Sternula albifrons sinensis) go during the austral winter. We know they don’t join the breeders in Japan, which breed during the northern summer. We know this because there has never been a record of an Australian breeder in Japan amongst their Little Terns. The northmost Australian records of this group are my own in Maroochydore, Sunshine Coast in early autumn, and a single record by Clive Minton of a bird seen on Swain Reefs off Qld (or was it the Cap Bunker?) in July, 2000. So we definitely need geolocators for Australian-breeding Little Terns. I think geolocators would be suitable because they tend to return to the same breeding sites.
I should explain for clarity. The subspecies of Little Tern which breeds in Australia during our summer is the same subspecies of Little Tern which breeds in the northern hemisphere during the northern summer. They are different populations, and whilst the two populations mix here in Australia, their breeding habits are out of kilter with each other.
I haven’t gone into it too far, but if anyone wants to ask more questions, that’s OK. It’s rather complicated.
Cheers,
Jill
Jill Dening Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
26° 51′ 41″S 152° 56′ 00″E
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Hi,
Where have the terns migrated from and where are they going to?
Carl Weber