Common Tern
2025 Common Tern Report
by Jennifer Arnold and Stephen Oswald, Penn State University We are excited to report on the 2025 field season for Common Terns at Presqu’ile Provincial Park, detailing the management and monitoring undertaken collaboratively by park staff and ourselves. We thank the Friends for their continued support of this important work. The unprecedented success of Common Terns at Presqu’ile is in large part due to this continued effort and adapting management approaches to meet prevailing challenges. The 2025 Common Tern breeding season broke many records, including seeing the largest colony at Presqu’ile since the 1970s and producing the most fledglings to leave the islands in […]
A Banner Year for Common Terns
By Jennifer Arnold & Stephen Oswald, Penn State University 2025 has been a banner year for Common Terns breeding at Presqu’ile Provincial Park. The park’s Biodiversity team has ensured that there is now more protected nesting space than ever within predator exclusion grids. Working collaboratively, we have implemented further improvements to tern grids to deter predatory night herons, monitored tern productivity and improved our understanding of the long-term impacts of the grids on colony growth. This year, terns began laying on May 10th and to date have laid 308 nests. From these nests, almost 500 chicks have been successfully raised […]
2020 Common Tern Research Update
Jennifer Arnold and Steve Oswald, from Penn State University, have been undertaking research on Presqu’ile’s Common Tern population since 2008, with financial assistance from the Friends of Presqu’ile Park. Although they are not yet able to travel to Canada this year, Jennifer and Steve have set in motion a plan to keep the Common Tern research and management going, so they can protect the terns and continue their long-term database. They have been working with Don Tyerman, Presqu’ile Provincial Park’s Biodiversity Specialist, and his crew, who have set up and are maintaining the predator exclusion grids on the islands with […]
Perseverance pay off: A good “tern” of events
By Dr. Jennifer Arnold & Dr. Stephen Oswald, Penn State University For those of you who have been following us for a while, you know the story. For those of you who are new here, suffice to say it’s a tough life for Common Terns in this part of the world and Presqu’ile is no exception. Year after year Common Terns get off to a good start on their small nest scrapings at Gull Island, Presqu’ile Provincial Park. Then, as the summer progresses, their eggs and chicks slowly disappear as they cope with storms, predators, overgrown vegetation, and a whole long […]
Common Tern Conservation
By Dr. Jennifer Arnold & Dr. Stephen Oswald, Penn State University We are thankful for your continued support of our work with the Park on common tern (Sterna hirundo) conservation. This has helped us develop and refine management approaches for this species that have greatly improved reproductive success and helped to retain common terns as a breeding species at Presqu’ile. Here, we provide a brief summary of our work at Presqu’ile in 2018. Summary of management approaches since 2014 Since 2014, development and use of fenced exclosures with overhead wires (coined “predator exclusion grids”) has been implemented. These grids are […]
Changing the Fortunes of the Common Tern
By Dr. Jennifer Arnold & Dr. Stephen Oswald, Penn State University If you are lucky enough to be visiting Presqu’ile between May and August, just take a moment to stop and listen along the shoreline and you will be rewarded by the shrill cry keeuri-keeuri-keeuri of Common Terns foraging just offshore. These beautiful waterbirds are about the size of a blue-jay but are rarely seen on land, spending most of their time over the water and, in the winter, off the coast of Peru. Despite their name, populations of Common Terns are in continuous decline across inland regions of North America, with […]
Studying Terns and Gulls
By Dr. Jennifer Arnold & Dr. Stephen Oswald, Penn State University Winter is finally here and while, for most, thoughts of summer days and breeding birds have been replaced with visions of snow and snuggling by the fire, biologists at Penn State University are working with Park Staff and many others to prepare for another year of research at Presqu’ile. For the past 3 years, Drs. Jennifer Arnold and Stephen Oswald have spent the summers at Presqu’ile studying nesting terns and gulls. They are particularly concerned about the smallest of the four colonial waterbird species that breed on Gull Island: […]
