Dozens of Aleutian terns circled a grazing field just past Lake Rose Tead, on the southern end of Kodiak’s road system. Some of them swooped near their nests in the field.
Daniel Smith, a biologist for the Sun’aq Tribe of Kodiak, has dodged getting dive bombed by the four-ounce birds a few times as part of the Tribe’s first summer studying Aleutian terns along Kodiak’s road system.
Biologists in 2015 found a more than 90% decline of the species statewide compared to populations in 1975. Smith said this Kodiak bird colony had a rough start to the summer, too.
“At the start of the year, there was about 150 birds, and then it kind of dropped a little bit where some of them probably failed to nest around mid to late June,” he said.
But later in the summer, Smith said many of them came back, and the area likely attracted others from around the archipelago.
Smith said this summer has been a “productive year” for Aleutian Terns in the Pasagshak area.
“One of the reasons why I think that it’s doing well is because this is the first year that the cattle have been rotated out of the field,” Smith said. “In previous years, the cattle have not been moved out of the field, and the cattle do good things for the terns, but also bad things.”
The good includes keeping grasses low. Smith said grazed areas are an ideal nesting habit for Aleutian terns. The nests usually look like a small divot in grassy areas and easily blend in with the rest of the field.
Grazed areas this year have attracted most of the island’s tern populations, according to Smith. There’s about 30 historical colonies around the archipelago, but biologists noticed most of them are moving to roaded areas like those by cow fields.
But if cows stay in an area too long, that can cause problems for the birds, too.
“Cows are great to keep that vegetation low, but when they’re there, unfortunately, the cattle have been known to trample nests,” Smith said.
That’s why biologists worked with the rancher in the area to move his animals to another area to graze. Smith said the rotation is already a huge benefit to helping the birds have better rearing grounds.
“This is the first year that they have been rotated, and we’ve already seen three fledgelings from the first nest attempt, which started around late May/early June, and they, some of them, had re-nested in late June early July,” Smith said.
Another large active colony this year just a few miles away, in Kalsin Bay, wasn’t as lucky. Nearly all of the eggs there were lost, partly because of both cow and human traffic.
Smith said he’s already talked with Lesnoi, one of the local Native corporations that manages the area.
“Permanent fences are probably not going to be the best thing since it is a heavily used area for camping and recreation, but we’re working together to make a solution for that, to protect those birds,” he said.
By now, many of Kodiak’s Aleutian terns are already starting to migrate for the winter, towards equatorial areas like Indonesia and the Philippines.
Smith said he’ll keep monitoring the colony for the next few weeks and resume when they migrate back to Kodiak next spring.
