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There are currently more than 100 white tern eggs being incubated in the greater Honolulu-Waikiki area. And weʻre trying to track every one of them to see how many hatch chicks and how many of those chicks survive to fledge! The data we collect also helps us help chicks when they fall from the trees by showing exactly where in the tree their nesting spot is so we can reunite them with their parents. Itʻs a growing challenge to keep up with the expanding tern population on Oahu and we appreciate all the help we get from the growing community of white tern fans. If youʻd like to help us monitor the terns near where you live or work check out the map below showing the location of all the trees that we know about where eggs are currently being tended. You can check the interactive Active Egg Map on this site to zoom in and see more precisely where the trees are location. Visit the Citizen Science page to tell us what see when you check a nesting spot. 
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There are a couple of amazing white tern nesting viewing opportunities in Waikiki right now, so we are organizing a "flash" short notice walk to check them out. They're concentrated in the area of the Royal Hawaiian Center, so we'll gather behind the stage at the base of the big banyon tree. This walk is being organized with photographers in mind, so feel free to bring your camera(s). Please RSVP so we'll know if we need to divide the group to avoid inconveniencing others visiting that busy tourist area. Email huimanuoku@gmail.com to RSVP.
The Hui is collaborating with Sarah Donahue of Hawaii Pacific University on an exciting new research study! See Sarah's message below to learn more about the study and how you can be involved.
My name is Sarah Donahue, I'm a researcher from the Pelagicos Lab at HPU, and I'm working in collaboration with Hui Manu`o`Kū (and other great organizations) to study the diet and marine food web supporting our growing population of White Terns on O`ahu. Our goals are to describe the diet using three approaches: (i) identification of prey from photos of adults provisioning chicks, (ii) identification of freshly dropped white tern prey using genetics, and (iii) analysis of the Carbon and Nitrogen isotope ratios in white tern tissues and their prey using opportunistically sampled deceased specimens. This study aims to broaden our knowledge of our fairy friends; who colonized O`ahu in 1961 (Ord 1961) and have reached a population of over 2300 birds in the last 57 years (VanderWerf & Downs 2018). We are eager to create a "starting point" of data to be able to compare to future diet studies. We also want to develop a broader understanding of how these birds fit into the marine ecosystem surrounding the islands where they breed. You may be wondering why am I writing all of this to you. Well, I am poking at your inner scientist button! I need YOUR HELP, as citizen scientists, to make the diet portion of this project possible. So, if would like to assist us with this fascinating research please email your photos of White Tern parents with prey in their bills to sarah.donahue93@gmail.com. I will share my findings with you and you will receive acknowledgement in any talks and papers using your observations. Information to include for pictures: - Day, year, time, location, nest, tree, and any additional descriptive information you may have (if you were there for the whole feed, how long did the parent feed, did you watch the chick get fed more then once, etc.). Moreover, if you happen to be walking around (talking amazing photos!) and happen to come across prey that looks to be fresh, here's what you can do: 1) Take a picture 2) Put it in a ziploc bag 3) On a piece of paper, write day, time & location found and put it in the ziploc 4) Freeze it asap (if you don't mind putting it in your own freezer; to preserve it) 5) Email me and get a hold of Rich Downs with an exact location and which nest the prey is under and we will find a way to get it to the lab. Everyone likes incentives and so we can make this a competition! To the top 5 people who provide the most prey, whether it be pictures, dropped fish or both, between now until January 31st, 2019, I will personally paint each of you, your favorite white tern picture and award you with a $20 Starbucks gift card. I will be posting research updates for the project on the White Tern Citizen Science Facebook Group as well, for you all to see and to peak your interests more about learning about what these birds eat and how we can determine changes in food web assemblages by studying seabird diet and trophic position! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I hope you will help us out! If you have any questions about the project as well feel free to email me. Mahalo for your time and collaboration! We’re all breathing a huge sigh of relief that the greater Honolulu area was spared the worst of Hurricane Lane. As we prepared for Lane, we worried about what might happen to the more than 200 active white tern nests if, as expected, hurricane force winds lashed the area and we were inundated with several inches of rain. Fortunately, Lane stalled and fizzled off shore, and we and the terns dodged a potentially devastating bullet. After completing the August nesting survey we identified active nests that would be most vulnerable to the anticipated effects of the storm. These included nesting spots with eggs or chicks at all stages of development, except flighted juveniles. Thanks largely to Calvin Proctor, the Hawai'i Wildlife Center intern currently detailed to the Honolulu Zoo, we’ve been able to survey 169 of these at-risk nests to begin to assess Lane’s impact. 14 (8.28%) of them failed sometime between when they were surveyed in August prior to the 25th and when they were checked again after the storm. Put another way, nearly 92% of the these most at-risk nesting events survived Lane. For context, over 60% of the nesting events we’ve tracked in 2018 have resulted in a successfully fledged chick. The losses during the storm were far less than feared, but we’ll have to wait to see how many of this cohort ultimately fledge to better understand the impact of our brush with Lane on the nesting terns. The map below shows the locations of the 169 nesting spots surveyed after Lane with yellow pins marking failed events.  Join the Hui and the University of Hawaii in a guided tour of White Terns on the UH-Manoa Campus on Sunday, September 23 from 9-10:30. We will meet in front of Sinclair Library.  Under normal conditions, when a chick is found on the ground we make every effort to put it back in the tree as close to its nesting spot as possible. However, for the next few days we're going to be under anything but normal conditions. While Hurricane Lane is messing with us, if you find a white tern chick on the ground it doesn't make sense to put it back in the tree. Instead we recommend that you collect the chick and place it in a small box with air holes and place a hand towel or T-shirt on the bottom. Then hold quietly until you are able to transport the chick to the Honolulu Zoo, Feather and Fur Animal Clinic, or Aloha Animal Hospital. You can find additional guidance on what to do at the Hawaii Wildlife Center's webpage at http://www.hawaiiwildlifecenter.org/rescue-injured-bird.html
Note in particular this guidance from the HWC: "Do not give food or water to the bird and do not leave any in the container or bag." If you have any questions about caring for chick while waiting to be able to get it to one the care providers please call the HWC at 808-884-5000. We're scheduling another in our series of Third Saturday Bird Walks for August 18. We’ll meet at 9:30 in the grove of Kukui trees on the Diamond Head side of Richards Street, near the intersection with Hotel Street (see photo). The walk will include stops at several of the trees in the downtown Honolulu area where white terns are currently tending eggs or chicks and will end at about 11:00. At 11:00, after the walk, we’ll provide a brief orientation session for anyone interested in learning how to monitor white tern nests and submit reports on their observations. The orientation will also take place in the grove of Kukuis on Richards Street. Please RSVP by texting 808-379-7555 or by emailing huimanuoku@gmail.com and let us know if you’ll be attending the orientation session or the tern walk. Feel free to bring your camera as there should be opportunities to get some great photos!  There’s a new White Tern Webcam up at the Iolani School. The egg hatched on the morning of Saturday, June 14! You can watch the chick and its parents at https://m.twitch.tv/iolaniwhitetern. If you're lucky, you will get to see the parents feed the chick!
It's getting late in the white tern breeding season but there are still several active nesting spots in the downtown Honolulu area, so we're scheduling another in our series of Third Saturday Bird Walks for July 21. We’ll meet at 9:30 in the grove of Kukui trees on the Diamond Head side of Richards Street, near the intersection with Hotel Street (see photo). The walk will include stops at several of the trees in the downtown Honolulu area where white terns are currently tending eggs or chicks and will end at about 11:00. At 11:00, after the walk, we’ll provide a brief orientation session for anyone interested in learning how to monitor white tern nests and submit reports on their observations. The orientation will also take place in the grove of Kukuis on Richards Street. Please RSVP by texting 808-379-7555 or by emailing huimanuoku@gmail.com and let us know if you’ll be attending the orientation session or the tern walk. Feel free to bring your camera as there should be opportunities to get some great photos!  Mahalo to Shalane Sambor for sharing an article she wrote that is soon to be published in The Arcadian newsletter chronicling her observations of a white tern chick that fledged from a tree on the grounds of the Arcadia Retirement Residence this spring. And mahalo to the staff at Arcadia for the care and concern they show for the terns nesting there!
Click here to read A Tern Tale - From Fledgling to Flight |