Terns

Everywhere you turn there is a tern.

They have a blog post all of their own, they were so plentiful and colourful on the island. They are sea birds and there are several types. The White Terns love the  low branches of the Norfolk pines that grow tall and majestic on the island. They are easy to see along the road- sides on the branches.

The Sooty terns prefer the beach – don’t blame them, less chance of falling off!

They are black above but white below and just really beautiful and the beaches we walked along were full of the mature adults, the eggs, hatchlings and fledglings and we spent hours just sitting by them on the beach watching them fly out to sea to hunt for food and then return to feed the young. We watched the little chicks make their first brave steps down to the beach and there was one I absolutely loved who found a lump of white coral. It would jump on the coral and sit there, feeling rightly quite proud of its achievement, and then it would hop off, walk around a bit and then hop back on. I captured some of its antics for you.

 

The fledglings, a completely different plumage from the mature birds were showing signs of maturity by venturing further along the beach, lying in the sun, taking test runs to fly and failing and chasing one another around. Just beautiful to watch. The beaches are safe, there are no predators here to take away the chicks or the eggs – though the rats still exist on the island.