These fairy tern chicks are still alive but not yet out of danger. They were born in different years, one on New Year's eve and the other on New Year's Day. Photo / Laura Patience/DoC
These fairy tern chicks are still alive but not yet out of danger. They were born in different years, one on New Year's eve and the other on New Year's Day. Photo / Laura Patience/DoC
Northland's precarious fairy tern population continues to get help from birdminders ensuring the species doesn't slip over the brink of extinction.
Of this summer's clutch at four different nesting sites, so far at least five chicks have survived in the wild.
Department of Conservation warden Eliane Lagnaz said two havealready fledged - are off the sand and flying around on their own; and a younger chick was banded last Monday, with two more due to be banded this week before they, too, learn to fly.
A pair at Mangawhai laid two viable eggs, with the chicks hatching in separate years - one on the last day of 2016 and the other on New Year's day 2017.
At Waipu, one chick disappeared in its first few days and one egg didn't hatch at all.
A chick also hatched at Papakanui, on Kaipara Harbour's South Head but it is not yet known if a second egg, still unhatched in the same nest, is fertile, Ms Lagnaz said.
"It's been really good weather-wise for a successful breeding season," she said.
The exposed scrapes in sand where fairy terns lay their eggs are often destroyed by high seas, predators, pets and, unwittingly, people.
None of this season's east coast sites have been reached and destroyed by high spring tides, nor have rough seas been driven up the sand by easterly winds, Ms Lagnaz said.
But, while signs and tape warned people to stay away, the big message to anyone living near the fully protected sites was to keep their cats inside at night, she said.
