Eye in the Sky for Day 7 helped big time

Special thanks to Tom Ledden and Bryce New for being able to help out at the nest site today due to a last minute call. You never know how busy the beach is going to be, but it does seem having 1 extra person than me makes it go much smoother.

Our role here as volunteers is about making sure we can direct people traffic around the nest site to ensure the birds stay on nest. We also need to record why birds leave the nest, for how long, and why. A much bigger component ls about educating people that birds nest on beaches and how people using the beaches can enjoy a day out while letting the beach nesting birds do their thing, incubating their next generation without disturbance.

Having me on beach, and having the "eyes in the sky" to do the data recording, to alert me to potential problems that I may need to head off on the beach, made the targets all achievable. I so love seeing the reaction from people that a bird can fly all the way from Alaska to here in 8 days straight, that there is another group that flies Arctic Circle to here and that birds actually do nest on beaches. If only there was a way to get the message out wider to people rather than one on one on a beach.

I am becoming increasingly convinced that the birds now nesting on the Spit are not the same pair that has been nesting here in previous years. The behaviour being exhibited by this pair is very different to those from previous years. My question is, if the Towra site is seeing success in breeding, where are the offspring expected to go once they reach breeding age and how are we supposed to manage that growth?

Day 7, done.