Photo by David Hollie. A young Roseate tern downs a fish its parent just supplied at Nauset Estuary Complex.
M.S. student Melissa Althouse recently finished up her second field season studying staging Roseate Terns on Cape Cod, MA. Melissa reports a successful field season, and shares a few highlights and photos.
Photo by David Hollie. Young Roseate tern sporting a plastic field readable (PFR) band, at Hatches Harbor, Provincetown, MA.
"We had a very eventful season. On top of exceeding my expectations in the amount of data collected, we managed to witness a great white shark attacking a seal off the coast of Monomoy NWR, get stranded in a hurricane with 72mph winds, see all the whales we could possibly wish for, watch a flock of over 8,000 shearwaters feeding, and make sure that EVERYONE on the team had some wonderful additions to their life-lists. I was very fortunate to have an amazing team to work with for my last field season. I met a lot of great people out on the beach, and will surely be missing Cape Cod next summer!"
Photo by David Hollie. M.S. student Melissa Althouse (left) and technicians Loren Gallo and Serina Brady speak with a member of the public after a survey session at Race Point Beach, Provincetown.
Melissa's work involves patiently watching mixed flocks of staging terns at several sites around Cape Cod and recording information about their behavior and their responses to potential sources of disturbance, like people, boats, and predators. Melissa's M.S. project is focused primarily on endangered Roseate Terns, but other species such as Common Terns, Least Terns, and Royal Terns (among others) stage with Roseate Terns and are part of her observations. Melissa and her field crew also resight color banded Roseate Terns as part of a larger effort to collect information about their demographics and movements.
Photo by David Hollie. A Roseate Tern with a PFR band, consisting of one letter and two numbers. This band is ‘T77’.
SUNY ESF's portion of the Roseate Tern work is part of a larger research study with partners and cooperators from the Karpanty Lab at Virginia Tech, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Cape Cod National Seashore, Mass Audubon, and Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge. We also owe a special thank you to the field technicians that have worked on the disturbance project- Serina Brady, Loren Gallo, Jenna Correia, and Jenna May.
Photo by David Hollie. Sunset over Nauset Marsh.
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