Volunteers needed to monitor for recently hatched chicks!

Easter egg hunts took place a couple of months ago and June seems like a good time for a white tern egg hunt. Seriously! There are over 70 white tern eggs in trees scattered around Honolulu that are waiting to be found. Actually, I found them during the months of April and May and now the nesting spots need to be checked to see how many have hatched and how many are still being incubated. Here’s your chance to take part in a white tern egg hunt and help us to keep track of these 70-plus nesting events! 

To see where the eggs are you can go to the Nest Maps tab, then scroll down and select the Active Egg Map option. You can also find the map below. You can then click on the red pins on the map to check the date the nest site was last surveyed and to see the nesting event status. Right now the status of all of these nests is “Egg.” For more information on each individual nesting event note the Nest ID, the 8-character (in most cases) unique identifier (ex. AM060103) assigned to each nesting event. You can then select the Database tab on our webpage, click on the White Tern Nests tab, and then click on the little blue grid icon and scroll down to the Active Eggs Since 4/1/17 view. Then scroll through the records to find the Nest ID you selected from the map. Click on the blue double-headed arrow that appears when you hoover over the record with your Nest ID and you’ll see all the information we’ve gathered so far on that particular nesting event. Scroll down to see photos of the tree and the location of the nesting spot in the tree where the egg was seen.

You can also download a file with all the information on these nest sites from the Database page by clicking on the “…” option on the menu bar and selecting Download CSV. You can then open and view this file on you computer, tablet or smartphone using your preferred spreadsheet software. 

There are a number of ways you can report your observations. You can click on the Citizen Science tab on our webpage and fill in the form (the form can also be found below). If you have a Nest ID you can skip the fields asking for tree location and species information. The most important fields for this exercise are the date of observation, Nesting Event Status and observer name and contact info. Any additional details you can provide will be appreciated. Or, if you prefer, you can just email your observation to us using the Contact link on our webpage. Just be sure to include the Nesting ID, Nesting Event Status and observation date in your email.​

Mahalo for your help!