Category: Least Terns

The Latest on Least Terns

2/7/2020

By Plover and Tern Program Director Ben Pearl

California Least Terns were once abundant along the Pacific Coast from Monterey Bay to the tip of Baja California. But once people began to flock to the California coast in the late 1800’s, their population began a steep decline.As colonial ground nesting seabirds, Least Terns are highly vulnerable for a number of reasons. Their primary breeding habitat, coastal sand dunes, have been largely developed, and those that have not often host large numbers of beachgoers. Least Terns are very sensitive to human disturbance, and thus few suitable breeding sites remain. Where they do still breed, they face high levels of egg and chick predation, especially from predators such as corvids, gulls, ...

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Thank You to Cargill for Supporting a Great Snowy Plover Season

3/4/2019

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By Plover Program Director Ben Pearl

The 2018 breeding season was an eventful one for Snowy Plovers here in the South San Francisco Bay. SFBBO staff faced cold and drizzly mornings to start the season, swarms of mosquitoes and triple digit temperatures in the middle of the summer, and long days in the field throughout. Our hard work paid off, as we monitored 269 nests in 22 ponds spread throughout the South Bay, with 79% of all nests found at Eden Landing. Pond E14, where we have invested a large amount of time and resources in recent years monitoring the large oyster shell enhancement, ...

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Least Terns Making the Most of New Breeding Site

8/2/2018

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By Plover Program Director Ben Pearl

During the 2018 breeding season, Federally Endangered California Least Terns returned to breed at Eden Landing Ecological Reserve in Hayward for the second year in a row! We were ecstatic for them to return, not only because Least Terns have limited breeding sites across their range, but also because past research, including our own monitoring in 2017, has indicated that Snowy Plovers benefit from nesting in close proximity to Least Terns.

This is due to the aggressive “mobbing” defense that tern colonies employ whenever an avian predator approaches too close to the ...

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The Latest on Least Terns

Thank You to Cargill for Supporting a Great Snowy Plover Season

Least Terns Making the Most of New Breeding Site

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