In the wide curve of Avoch Bay, the RSPB had constructed rafts for common terns to nest.
Once the war was over, he returned to academic life, earning a PhD for his studies of the behaviour of common tern chicks in the Camargue.
Eggs of common tern (Sterna hirundo) were collected from the Oslofjord, and eggs of arctic terns (Sterna paradisaea) were collected from Froan and Spitsbergen.
Eggs of common tern (Sterna hirundo) were collected from the Oslofjord, and eggs of arctic terns (Sterna paradisaea) from Froan and Spitsbergen.
Plus our rock is one of the few nesting places for the common tern – which apparently isn't very common – so there were restrictions on when we could do any work.
For example, the common tern has a distinctive alarm, kee-yah, also used as a warning to intruders, and a shorter kyar, given as an individual takes flight in response to a more serious threat; this quietens the usually noisy colony while its residents assess the danger.
Researchers know, for example, that Great Gull Island is home to more than 2,000 nesting pairs of roseate terns, the rarest tern species, along with about 10,000 nesting pairs of common terns.
Like all Sterna terns, the common tern feeds by plunge-diving for fish, from a height of 1-6 m, either in the sea or in freshwater lakes and large rivers.
The common tern: "It never eats marketable fish".
"There's a 2-year-old common tern," Mr. Laux said.
