Time and Tide

What happens when the growing marine economy meets efforts to protect threatened and endangered seabirds? Elizabeth Craig and her team are mapping the journeys of common and roseate terns (Sterna hirundo and Sterna dougallii) to ensure both conservation efforts and development can move forward together in the Gulf of Maine. Join us in the bird blind on this episode of Time and Tide as we uncover how seabird researchers are able to track the movements and feeding behaviors of terns in the Gulf of Maine, and why these movements matter to us.

Act 1: Step onto White and Seavey Islands with Elizabeth Craig, Director of Seabird Science at Shoals Marine Laboratory, as she describes the threats faced by common and roseate terns in a changing Gulf of Maine, and why we as humans should care about the fate of these agile birds that spend their lives at sea. We dodge dive-bombing birds, and side-step freshly hatched chicks while discussing the importance of data-driven conservation efforts and her team's latest Sea Grant-funded research. We also address hard-hitting questions such as: why do seabird researchers wear wide-brimmed hats? And what is seabird poop bingo?

Act 2: We join Caitlin Panicker, an undergraduate student at Bowdoin College, in the bird blind to learn what it's like to live on the Isles of Shoals for a summer, watching the same birds fly in and out of a nesting colony. Caitlin explains what a tern 'neighborhood' looks like and shares some advice for college students looking to gain field experience.

Act 3: So, where does all of this information go, and how does it impact us non-birds? We sat down with Katy Bland, a Research and Engagement Manager working with Sea Grant and NERACOOS, to talk through the uses of Elizabeth's tern research with us. Katy focuses on the interaction between coastal communities and offshore renewable energy development in the Gulf of Maine. Making her the perfect guest to help us understand how Liz’s seabird research can be used to inform decisions about how we use our ocean.

Guest Speakers:

Dr. Elizabeth Craig, Director of Seabird Science, Shoals Marine Laboratory
Affiliate Faculty, Department of Biological Sciences, UNH.

Caitlin Panicker, undergraduate student intern currently attending Bowdoin College.

Katy Bland, Research and Engagement Manager, NERACOSS, New Hampshire Sea Grant, Maine Sea Grant.

Hosted by: Brian Yurasits, Science Communication Specialist, New Hampshire Sea Grant.

Produced by: Brian Yurasits

Creators and Guests

Host

Brian Yurasits

Science Communication Specialist, New Hampshire Sea Grant.

What is Time and Tide?

Time and Tide is a New Hampshire Sea Grant podcast for anyone who is connected to the Granite State’s waterways and wants to learn more about the latest science impacting both yourself, and the animals that live here. Hosts Erik Chapman and Brian Yurasits break down complex topics from seafood to coastal resilience by bringing on guests from both the research world, and local industries to share their expertise and perspectives.

Towards a Bird Friendly Blue Economy_FINAL DRAFT
Elizabeth Craig: [00:00:00] So this is an interesting time of the season 'cause we've got babies in the air, but we've also got brand new babies from this, anyone who failed earlier has re-layed and um, their chickens are hatching. So we've got chicks of all ages right now. Our population graph looks since they started here in the early two thousands, almost continuous growth for roseate terns.
It's excellent because most of the roseate terns are breeding down further south. Like you said, you're from Long Island, I don't know if you've heard of Great Gull Island.
Brian Yurasits: Yes. Very familiar.
Elizabeth Craig: So Great Gull and then like up into Buzzards Bay, Bird and Ram Islands. So, those are the big colonies for roseate terns, where they've got thousands of birds.
Like 98% of the population is there.
Brian Yurasits: Yep.
Elizabeth Craig: And then the Gulf of Maine has a small, like two to five percent. They're pretty important in terms of like not having all the eggs in one basket. Yeah. Down in Buzzards Bay. Also, our colleagues who are looking at the population structure say that these are important in terms of genetic [00:01:00] diversity, so they're probably maintaining some genetic diversity for the whole population.
Brian Yurasits: Yep.
Elizabeth Craig: Also the goal is to have several more large colonies of roseate terns further north and this is the largest one. Yeah. So with, um, this is certainly the largest one in the Gulf of Maine, and then they just get smaller as you go north.
Brian Yurasits: There's a place just six miles off the coast of New Hampshire where the summer air is thick with salt spray and something else. The sharp quick calls of seabirds echo across the water and every step that you take is met with a rush of wings overhead. It's here on White and Seavey Islands that hundreds of common and roseate terns come to nest, [00:02:00] and it's here that researchers like Liz Craig, and her team spend their summers living alongside these birds, quite literally in the middle of their colony.
These terns aren't just a picturesque part of the seascape. They're travelers migrating thousands of miles each year, and their survival tells us something important about the health of our oceans and how our impacts as humans can ripple across their world. Today, on Time and Tide, we're stepping onto these Isles with Liz Craig, a Seabird Biologist funded by New Hampshire Sea Grant and Caitlin Panicker, an undergraduate researcher who's learning the ropes and ducking some occasional dive bombing terns as they study their movements through the Gulf of Maine. We'll hear about what it's like to live on a remote island in the middle of a seabird colony. How you track a creature that spends most of its life over open water and why understanding where these birds travel could help us build a future that's truly bird friendly and ocean [00:03:00] friendly at the same time. In the final act of today's episode, Katy Bland, a research and engagement manager who focuses on the interaction between coastal communities and offshore renewable energy development in the Gulf of Maine, will help us to understand the importance of good data in making decisions for the future of our ocean. Welcome to Time and Tide. Fly along with us.
Elizabeth Craig: My name is Dr. Liz Craig. My role is the Director of Seabird Research for the Shoals Marine Lab. We are a joint field station between Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire, and I'm also an affiliate faculty in the biology department at UNH. I have spent about three years of my life on this rock.
Brian Yurasits: Nice. Which is pretty impressive
Elizabeth Craig: If you, if you add all the months together back to back.
Brian Yurasits: Three full years on an island, have you gotten sick of it yet?
Elizabeth Craig: No. It's impossible to get sick of being out here. It never gets boring.
Brian Yurasits: I would definitely concur with you there. Um, and also, what are your dog's names?
Elizabeth Craig: So Sunny and Louise are here in order to keep the, [00:04:00] um, the birds that we're protecting away from the historic structures here. So the island that we're on is owned by the New Hampshire Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
And they have an agreement with our friends at New Hampshire Fish and Game that as long as we maintain public access to the historic structures, um, we can also attract and protect all these wonderful, threatened and endangered terns. So it's a great partnership. It means that we keep dogs here to keep the birds away from the historic structures so that folks like yourself and anyone from the public can come and visit the lighthouse.
Brian Yurasits: Could you describe a little bit like where we are on the Isles of Shoals? What islands are these terns and these seabirds nesting on?
Elizabeth Craig: Today we're on White Island. White and Seavey Island are the two most southerly islands in the Isles of Shoals, and that's where our tern conservation efforts are, are centered.
So we're about a mile south of Appledore. You can see Star Island from here, we're just on the New Hampshire side of the Maine-New Hampshire border.
Brian Yurasits: For anyone who's never seen a tern [00:05:00] before or, uh, who might be listening and wondering what a tern is or what species are nesting out here on White and Seavey Island, could you describe the species that you're studying out here?
Elizabeth Craig: Most people are familiar with gulls and gulls are in the same family as terns, so the terns that we're studying here are common and roseate terns. Both are about 1/10th the size of a gull that you might see on the beach. If you ever are in the Seacoast area or offshore, and you see a small bird diving into the water from the air plunge, diving in to catch a fish, that's probably a tern.
I mentioned the two species are common and roseate terns, the common is threatened here in New Hampshire as well as on the Maine side of the border, and the roseate tern is a federally endangered species. So we're interested in all the terns, really, all the seabirds that are breeding on the Isles of Shoals.
We're particularly interested in the roseate tern because it is a federally endangered species.
Brian Yurasits: How would you tell the difference? Is there a way to tell the difference between roseate and common terns
Elizabeth Craig: Telling the difference between [00:06:00] roseate and common terns is probably something more for the, the birders in the group because they do look really similar.
They're in the same genus. They both have black caps and gray wings and sort of whitish gray bellies. The roseate tern is overall a much brighter white bird with a black bill, at least during the breeding season, whereas the common tern has that orange bill with a black tip, so you can tell them apart that way.
If you're close enough to see the color of the bill and if you're lucky enough to hear them, the call between the common and roseate tern is also very distinct.
Brian Yurasits: I will say walking around the island with you, that was very noticeable. Hanging out in the area of the island where it was all roseate terns, you really, when you pointed it out, it was quite obvious.
Elizabeth Craig: You get into their neighborhoods and all of a sudden the soundscape changes.
Brian Yurasits: You used this word neighborhoods while we were walking around the island a bit. Can you describe like how the layout of the island works for these terns? You mentioned neighborhoods like it's a city or, just a, and it does seem like a densely packed area of te rns.
Elizabeth Craig: Yeah. So we use human language like neighborhoods because [00:07:00] that's something relatable. But um, the birds definitely do like to nest in clusters with other members of their species. So there's common terns nesting all over these islands. We counted over 3000 nests of common terns this year. The roseate terns are clumped interspersed throughout the island.
They tend to like deep grass or nest in cavities under rocks, so they do have slightly different preferences to what the common terns are using. So from that perspective, they do naturally clump because they prefer different habitat types that occur in clumps, but also they seem to prefer to nest close to one another.
So the roseate terns like to nest around other roseate terns. They do only nest alongside common terns though, you don't see roseate terns in this population breeding on their own. And that's probably 'cause the common turns are providing some protection. The large common tern colonies are really, um, aggressive towards predators.
And you know, as you were walking through the colony, you probably noticed you got hit in the head a couple times with a beak or maybe poop. The roseate terns are likely benefiting from that umbrella of protection that they get [00:08:00] from nesting alongside common terns.
Brian Yurasits: We experienced both while we were out there.
Mm-hmm. The, the poop and the, uh, the, the little taps on the head as you're walking by. Before I get into the conservation status of some of these species, it is so interesting landing on this island on, you know, a small zodiac boat and then walking around the island and just having to wear certain styles of hats on your head.
Mm-hmm. If you could talk a little to that, that, that was really something I've never experienced before, personally. Having to wear just a very wide-brimmed hat so that these terns don't get your ears. Yeah. Is that why you recommend wide-brimmed hats? And I know, I noticed people put a feather on top, so they're gonna attack the highest point and they're not booping you on the head.
Elizabeth Craig: Those hats, the clothing is really just for our protection. So we wanna put something on our head so that first, a little bit of padding so that when the bird hits you hard in the head, it doesn't injure you or the bird. Um, that's why we don't wear hard hats because we don't want something really hard that the birds are dive bombing.
And in terms of wide brims. These birds poop [00:09:00] defensively, and they have excellent aim. So we actually have a bingo board in the other room where you can, it's, it's all laid out the different, terrible ways that you can get pooped on, and it's one way to feel better about getting pooped on by these birds. In the ear, up your nose, on your sunglasses.
That's their way of being defensive. Uh, so in that way, they're excellent parents. The bingo helps with morale. Uh, the other thing that helps with morale about getting pooped on is that we collect poop samples from the birds to learn about their diet. So our collaborator, Gemma Clucas, at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is taking these poop samples and doing genomics, a genomic analysis to determine what fish species are actually in the poop.
So being able to collect those samples that you just got pooped on helps a lot. It makes you feel a whole lot better about getting pooped on and you get to learn so much cool stuff about what the birds are eating.
Brian Yurasits: I was gonna let our listeners use their imagination in terms of the worst ways that you could get pooped on, but uh, I think you laid it out pretty well there.
Elizabeth Craig: I think the, the worst one on the bingo board might be, um, towel or freshly showered hair. [00:10:00]
Brian Yurasits: Ooh, that, that sounds, that sounds pretty especially bad.
Elizabeth Craig: Yeah. So that's just part of life, living on a tern colony. But it's the benefit of being able to be here in their area is that we, first of all, we're able to protect them from predators.
We're here all the time to monitor how the birds are doing, and it gives us an incredible opportunity to spend many hours a day observing their behavior.
Brian Yurasits: Yeah. And so now I want to get into why specifically you are researching and observing, uh, roseate terns. I know you mentioned there's less of them on this island than common terns.
What are some of the both natural threats that they face in just existing in this difficult world and human caused threats that they face that have led them to be considered, you said that they're an endangered species, correct? Mm-hmm. So what are the threats that these animals face in their daily lives?
Elizabeth Craig: So, the roseate tern, we might have anywhere between 150 to 200 pairs [00:11:00] here on the Isles of Shoals. It's the largest roseate tern nesting colony in the Gulf of Maine. The much larger colonies are further south from here. So as we go north into the Gulf of Maine, the population size gets smaller. During the breeding season, the risks to nesting efforts of these birds include the adults being able to find enough fish to provision their chicks. So enough food for their chicks to grow, and also for the adults to feed themselves. But there's also aspects of predation by gulls or other predators. Um, other avian predators, other mammalian predators on the nesting colony.
That is one of the things we're managing for. Storminess, these birds, when the babies are really small, they can't thermoregulate very well, and so bad timing for strong storms can be problematic for their success. But what I'm describing are threats to chicks and eggs. The adult birds, there are some predators of adult birds here as well.
Like our peregrine falcons, which are a wonderful native species here in the Isles of Shoals, will predate adult [00:12:00] terns and the adult terns take that threat very seriously. All the birds will get up at once and go after that predator. Besides a predator like a peregrine Falcon, there's not a whole lot of predators for adult terns, and for that reason, adult terns live a really long time.
Mm-hmm. So once they make it to adulthood, the probability of surviving another year is very high. So we have birds in our study, even this year, birds that we've tagged that are 17 years old. And in our population, typically we'll see a 20 or 21, 22-year-old bird, um, on the annual. So they live a long, a long time.
If they can make it to adulthood, they can live a really long time.
Brian Yurasits: I want to get into some of the previous studies and your current study that you're working on that has been funded by New Hampshire Sea Grant and these seem to really key into the diets of these animals and the larger ecosystem here in the Gulf of Maine as a whole that can support a healthy population of roseate terns.
Elizabeth Craig: So we've been studying the diet of common terns for the most part. We have a data set at this colony that goes back 25 [00:13:00] years. So we can see how the diet of these birds has shifted over time, both in terms of the species composition that are present and what's the quantity and quality of fish that are coming in.
So we do see shifts in that, we talk a lot about butterfish here. This is a warmer water fish that we now see in greater proportion of the diet. It's not a great fish for these birds, either common or roseate terns because the fish is too deep bodied for the chicks to swallow. So that's just one very visual indicator of the suitability of the fish community shifting and maybe declining over time as waters are warming.
The roseate tern, we've only started studying their diets the last few years. We started by collecting poop samples and we're primarily collecting poop samples from the chicks to identify what the parents are feeding them. We've found that the diets of those roseate terns is much more limited, much narrower, more selective than the common terns.
So common terns are pretty generalist. They eat a lot of what's around. When there's a lot of herring, they tend to do better. The roseate [00:14:00] terns tend to prefer, at least at this location, the sand lance. This is a fish that inhabits sandy bottom substrates. Our beaches here in coastal New Hampshire seem to be a great place for sand lance habitat, and so the roseate terns are really keying into that.
It shows up in the poop samples that we've been collecting, and now the last couple years, we're also adding visual observations and video visual observations, so GoPros as well as time spent in the blinds to visually identify which fish species are coming in and how frequently and how big they are. So basically, what's the biomass of fish that these roseate terns are bringing in?
So certainly the diets are different between those species. We don't yet have a great sense for how the roseate tern diet may be shifting, but what we're keeping an eye out for are elements in the environment that might impact sand lance in particular, since that's the species that this bird is, is really relying on at least here during the breeding season.
Brian Yurasits: We did see a little bit of both of those out on the island today. We saw these, these terns bringing back sand lance in their [00:15:00] mouth. It's very, it's very easy to tell, very obvious when they have a sand lance, they're long, they're skinny,
Elizabeth Craig: Long, noodly floppy fish, yep.
Brian Yurasits: Yep. And butterfish are just much rounder.
They're not going to to slide down the gullet of a small tern as easily. How have you been building on that research and what are you looking at today with your most recent Sea Grant study?
Elizabeth Craig: Yeah, so our currently funded research with Sea Grant is looking at the movement of the terns, the roseate terns in particular, but also common terns comparing them to one another.
Largely, we're interested in the roseate terns because this is an understudied species we don't have any real idea about where they're foraging in the environment. We've never conducted any research, and there's a huge data gap in the movement ecology of roseate terns generally, including here during the breeding season.
So we have anecdotally seen birds on the beaches. We see them around when we're out in boats. There's a lot of anecdotal information about where the birds are going. This is our first opportunity to look at [00:16:00] fine scale movement to say exactly which habitats they're using, which they prefer, which they might be avoiding.
And this is important to us first to be able to understand what are the important habitats to be protecting for roseate terns. What do they need? What kind of habitats are they relying on to help support their chicks? And also to help inform offshore and near shore industry. As we are building in the marine environment, we want to be able to do it in a way that's safe for all wildlife and particularly for endangered species.
So if we know where the endangered species, the roseate tern in particular, where it likes to be, what kind of habitats it's really focusing on, then we can help inform industry and regulators on where's the best place, let's say, not to build or to build. Based on occupancy.
Brian Yurasits: So how exactly do you track a small bird?
I, I noticed that, uh, they had a very small little device on their back that almost looked like a little backpack in a way that this bird was flying around with.
Elizabeth Craig: So these birds are wearing [00:17:00] little GPS backpacks. The transmitter itself collects the GPS data, a very high accuracy point, and then transmits that data via radio link over to our base station here at the White Island Field Station, so we never have to recapture the animal.
It's constantly out there in the environment, collecting data and then sending it over radio waves to our base station. So in that way it's a three gram tag. It's a small, uh, little backpack that the bird carries around and it's providing us with an update about where the bird is at 10 minute intervals.
Brian Yurasits: You did mention offshore industries and our human use of the Gulf of Maine possibly there being more of that in the future. What specifically are you thinking of there?
Elizabeth Craig: We're thinking really broadly about human use of the environment. So the things that are happening in New Hampshire's seacoast and throughout the Gulf of Maine include offshore energy development, aquaculture, fisheries, there's, I could name 10 more.
There's a lot that's going on. The ways that humans are interacting with and [00:18:00] using the marine environment. So our goal is not specifically targeted at any one industry. We want to make sure that any industry that could have an impact has the information that they need in order to minimize impacts, uh, to the environment.
So we're, we're making these data publicly available online, and we're also targetedly sending our data to agencies like the US Fish and Wildlife Service so that they can make better regulatory decisions about where different activities should occur.
Brian Yurasits: That is really interesting. It's, it's a part of Sea Grant as a whole, like most of our studies, we want them to have an application in the real world where they can help inform decision makers and help us co-exist with our natural world here in New Hampshire and more broadly, New England as a whole. I want to end here with, what is your favorite part about spending each summer out here on White Island?
Elizabeth Craig: My favorite thing is just getting to be part of the daily lives of these birds. It's incredible to study an animal like this, but to get to live [00:19:00] alongside it and experience the same weather and see what's a good day and what's a bad day? And just get to know their, their lives is incredible and it never gets old.
This is my 10th summer on this island. Part of what keeps it fresh is having new students every year. So at Shoals Marine Lab, we bring in undergraduate researchers and students to study these animals, and they bring their own fresh perspective. I get to see it new through their eyes every year, but also I learn something new about these birds because the new people that are coming in bring their own ideas. And so if it were just me alone on this rock, maybe it's possible I could run out of questions. I don't know. But because we have such an incredible influx of students, there's always something more to learn.
Brian Yurasits: I've heard people talk about the Isles of Shoals in the past, the eras of the Isles of Shoals through history and how today it's really this, this hub, especially with Appledore, with Shoals Marine Lab, of research, of people experiencing the wonder of this [00:20:00] incredible world apart from the mainland. How do you feel or what would you tell to any of our listeners out there, what would you tell them about your place in that era of research and wonder today and getting people to use the Isles of Shoals as a way to experience the natural world.
Elizabeth Craig: So the Isles of Shoals can be a hard place to get to, but there are a lot of places that you can visit.
White Island is open to the public. It's an incredible place to get to visit if you can brave the rocky shoreline, the big waves and the aggressive birds. It is a really cool part of history. We have a historic lighthouse here that's over 200 years old and these rocks that are out here, they're the same ones that folks have been walking on for, uh, centuries.
And so we feel like we're a small part of that history, but this is a really cool era to be spending out on the Isles of Shoals.
Brian Yurasits: Why should anyone out there care about our seabirds and care about the research that you're doing out here?
Elizabeth Craig: It's a great question because we so often when we talk about [00:21:00] wildlife, we just assume that there's some inherent value to protecting wildlife, which is true.
But the birds themselves teach us a lot about us as a species, as humans. Part of it is that we share this reliance on the ocean. The other piece that I think of with, especially with endangered species, is that we can make a difference by maintaining biodiversity of species generally here, it's one of those things that oftentimes you feel paralyzed.
Everything's gone to pot. How can we make a difference? These birds are one example where a few people or even a community can come together and make a difference.
Brian Yurasits: Thank you so much, Liz, for sharing your research with us and good luck with the rest of your field season out here.
Elizabeth Craig: Thanks. It was fun.
Brian Yurasits: Spending the summer on the Isles of Shoals changes the way you see the world. For Liz, it's years of research, field notes and long days in the middle of a colony. But for someone just starting out, it's all brand new. That's where Caitlin Panicker comes in. She's an undergraduate student who traded a summer of classrooms and campus [00:22:00] sidewalks for tide charts, bird blinds, and the constant sound of terns overhead.
She's here to learn and to help answer a question that could shape the future of these endangered birds. Stay with us.
My first question for you, Caitlin, is how did you manage to find yourself living out on the Isles of Shoals this summer and helping Liz with her research?
Caitlin Panicker: Yeah, so I'm currently, I'll be a senior at Bowdoin College in the fall, and I'm studying biology and gender sexuality and women's studies. Um, and I knew that I really wanted to like do ecology research this summer and spend a lot of time outside doing field work.
I just, I really loved that this was focused on seabirds and focused on terns and guillemots. I thought both of those species were really fascinating and I was really excited to learn more about them. I didn't know really that much about terns or guillemots in the way that I feel like I have learned since then.
Yeah, I think I was just really interested in working with seabirds and being outside and being able to do field work, and do [00:23:00] independent work, and it's been so wonderful. Like Liz is such a wonderful mentor for all of that.
Brian Yurasits: What is it like living and working out on the Isles of Shoals? Could you describe what that feeling is like when you land on the island and you're greeted by all these birds?
What does a day in your, in your life this summer look like out there?
Caitlin Panicker: I'd never been out here before this summer. Yeah, so I spend a lot of my time on Appledore, that's where I live with all the other interns, but White Island is where I've been doing all of my research and so going over there is pretty awesome.
It's really, it's such a cool island. There's like this huge lighthouse and it's definitely a little chaotic getting onto the landing there. I, I feel like as soon as you get there, you just kind of realize that you're like surrounded by these birds that you're studying and they're like everywhere and their babies are everywhere and they're doing all sorts of things.
We would head out into the field on Seavey Island, which is where most of the common and roseate terns are located. I feel like day to day. A lot of the times when I was out there, we were just checking productivity plots. Looking for new chicks and banding chicks and measuring and, um, weighing chicks and doing [00:24:00] all of that sort of thing.
Throughout the summer, there were a couple of different milestones that we tried to get each chick from the nest that we were looking at for. And then the other thing that I was mostly doing was diet watches. So from the bird blinds on the island, looking at certain focal areas and focal nests and seeing what birds were bringing back to the nest.
You know, how big was that prey item and what kind of fish it was, and how often they were bringing back food to their chicks.
Brian Yurasits: As you walk in between White and Seavey island, I mean, it's only accessible at low tide. Right? So I assume that you, you all had to time your day based around the tides a little bit there just to be able to, to access, uh, Seavey Island is, is that correct?
Caitlin Panicker: So it's only accessible I think for about six hours out of the day because the tides, the land bridge completely fills over with water for the rest of the day. And so most of the time we would go over when it was low tide and then we'd still come back when it was low tide, but there was one time that we went over right before the tide came in and just stayed over there until the tide went out.
Nice. So that was really cool. Yeah, it's definitely interesting having to time your field work to the tides.
Brian Yurasits: So I [00:25:00] know you mentioned that you were studying the diets of these chicks. How exactly do you tell what these terns are feeding on themselves and bringing back to their chicks.
Caitlin Panicker: Yeah. So one of the things that I was really interested in just coming into the summer and learning more about the terns was like foraging strategies.
So where they were going to get food and what kind of food they were bringing back. So one of the things that constrains what kind of food they're bringing back is that they're single bill loaders, they can only bring back one fish at a time to their chicks. Yeah, that was definitely something that I had to learn too coming into the summer is how to ID different kinds of fish that were being brought in, especially when they're being brought in really fast and they're really small.
But the big types of fish that we saw roseate terns eating this summer were herring and sand lance, but a little bit of hake, but mostly herring and sand lance. I feel pretty evenly split between those two kinds of fish, just anecdotally.
Brian Yurasits: I want to paint the picture here. So, as you're sitting in the bird blind, how exactly do you manage to track all of this activity happening right in front of you?
'cause there's birds going left and right and center, and they're [00:26:00] all over the place. So how do you, as one person. Sitting in that blind for a couple of hours, manage? Did you have a strategy for like tracking a specific bird as it comes in? Or I'm curious, like how did you go about collecting data from those visualizations that you had?
Caitlin Panicker: The two blinds are placed just kind of at a good spot to look at two separate roseate tern neighborhoods, and so at a time I would be focusing on anywhere between like six to eight nests and just watching specifically those six to eight nests. So the first thing that I did every time that I got into the bird blind to do a watch was just look at a picture that I had of that area that was marked for each nest that I was looking at.
Um, and I would just kind of orient myself with, you know, where each nest was in relation to other nests and also to like different like landmarks within the neighborhoods just to see if I saw a bird come in at a certain location, and I also confirmed that it was, you know, a bird associated with that nest, I could say that nest had a feeding at that time, but it was also a lot of reading plastic field readable bands, which are [00:27:00] like little plastic bands with like a number and letter combination that you can read through binoculars that are a way of IDing different birds. Um, and so we had those both on the parents and on the chicks so you can see what bird is going in to feed and then what bird is getting fed.
But it also does get difficult 'cause you know, there's a lot of vegetation and birds are flying really fast and there are so many birds all over the place. It's really fun and kind of satisfying to just like see all these birds come in and watch them feed.
Brian Yurasits: Yeah. It sounds like there's an art to this that you may have figured out in your summer over there. You mentioned, there's two parts to this, the, the visual monitoring in the bird blind of what are these adults bringing back to their nests? And you can tell the individuals based on the bands that are around their legs, right. How were you able to tell where these birds were going to forage for food.
Caitlin Panicker: Yeah. So the other part of my project was, um, GPS tagging birds. So we had 10 GPS tags that we deployed on roseate terns this year. [00:28:00] These are little leg loop GPS tags, so they go around the bird's legs and then sit in between their wings on their back. They're powered by little solar panels, so they continue to recharge as the bird is flying. We deploy those tags after their first chick hatch. So we use the chick to trap the adult and then put the tag on the adult. And then once those tags are deployed, they take a GPS point every 10 minutes so we can see where the bird is going and where it's forging. We, during the breeding season are assuming that each time the bird leaves the colony, after their chick is hatched, they should be coming back to get, uh, bring food to their chick and at some point along the way, also provisioning for themselves. So we're looking at all of that data and trying to match up the timestamps of foraging trips with the timestamps of observed feedings from those diet watches to see where a bird was right before it brought back a certain kind of food, or how often a bird is going to a certain location to get a certain type of food.
Brian Yurasits: Have you been able to come up with any conclusions? This summer on where those tagged turns have been foraging?
Caitlin Panicker: Roseate terns, they don't feed very [00:29:00] often. Often when I was in the blind for a couple of hours, I would observe like maybe seven feedings. So I'm still working on collecting a lot of data on diet watches from the GoPro footage that we have from cameras that were placed outside of each focal GPS nest. So I'm still working on getting all of that data lined up. But what I've found from just the GPS data alone is that birds have been forging in the Piscataqua River a lot more than they have, um, compared to 2024, especially during the month of June.
So last year in June, roseate terns at least were going south to forage, to like Hampton Beach, Plum Island area, and even further south along the coastline. This year they were going into the mouth of the river to get a lot of their fish. That range kind of expanded to also include those more southern areas during the month of July.
But we're seeing that they're forging in the river more than they have in the past, which is interesting 'cause that's also where most of the common terns forage. You know, it's interesting to see that they're kind of moving towards that same foraging location. It's just interesting to think about, you know, where they're foraging relative to their common tern [00:30:00] neighbors.
Brian Yurasits: And I was curious if you could talk a little bit about like the goals of this research. Like why do we care where these roseate and common terns spend their time foraging on our coast?
Caitlin Panicker: Yeah, so roseate terns are a federally endangered species. And you know, just seabirds at large are really important indicators of ocean ecosystem health.
One of the things that we found is that roseate terns are using, you know, other nature preserves as a location for foraging. So it's important to think about, you know, protecting these different areas that are not only where the bird is breeding and raising its chicks, but also where it's foraging, especially 'cause that can be really far away for some seabirds.
Brian Yurasits: Yeah, so it's kind of like a holistic approach to understanding an endangered species. Are there any lessons that you've learned while working with Liz around this idea of like, you need to do more than just protect these animals where they breed, right?
Caitlin Panicker: I didn't know that they forged in such a different location from where they bred.
Something that I've definitely learned this summer is that, you [00:31:00] know, conservation requires knowing a lot about a species. You know, like this sort of research is really important for conservation work and understanding how our actions should best be guided by what these birds are actually doing.
Brian Yurasits: Do you have like any one story or like learning experience that sticks out to you?
Caitlin Panicker: Like I said earlier, I'd never done, you know, like a diet watch before or IDed fish before ever, much less IDed fish in a bird's mouth. Yeah, I don't know. It was cool to like start doing this thing that I'd never done before and then like feel myself getting a lot better at it throughout the summer.
Brian Yurasits: Did you ever become used to the sound of terns constantly, all day?
Caitlin Panicker: I slept over at White, I think almost every weekend. This summer, and I feel like by probably even the second time I stayed over there, I barely even heard it when I was inside the house. Yeah.
Brian Yurasits: It's just white noise at that point.
Caitlin Panicker: Well, the thing is on Appledore, the gulls are really loud, so there's always some sort of bird in the background.[00:32:00]
Brian Yurasits: You're never alone.
Caitlin Panicker: No.
Brian Yurasits: What does the future for Caitlin look like after having this experience out on the aisles of Shoals?
Caitlin Panicker: I came into the summer just really excited to do field work and really excited to spend time, you know, outside actually like interacting with these birds. And I definitely feel like I've come out of this summer wanting to do that still. Like I still would love to have some sort of job that involves, you know, like field work and being outside and hoping to go to grad school.
Brian Yurasits: Is there anything that, that we can learn about ourselves or that we can learn about our place in the natural world from understanding terns a little bit more.
Caitlin Panicker: I have 10 birds that were GPS tagged, nine that are still functioning and all of these birds are birds that I, you know, watched over the whole summer, and I feel like they all definitely have different little quirks and personalities and ways that they're interacting with their mate and their chick.
And so I think that's a really interesting thing to look at and kind of learn from is that there are just all these things to notice about [00:33:00] individual animals and things to study with individual animal behavior.
Brian Yurasits: Yeah, there's more to them than just seeing them squawk and dive for fish at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, right. I just wanna say, Caitlin, thank you so much for taking the time and sharing some of your story with us. It's been a pleasure to get to go out there with you and sit in a bird blind together.
Caitlin Panicker: Yeah. Thank you so much. This was awesome.
Brian Yurasits: In the final act of today's episode, we sit down with Katy Bland, a woman who wears many hats.
Her role as research and Engagement Manager connects three different organizations, including New Hampshire Sea Grant, Maine Sea Grant, and the Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems, NERACOOS for short. Katy focuses on the interaction between coastal communities and offshore renewable energy development in the Gulf of Maine, making her the perfect guest to help us understand how Liz's seabird research can be used to inform decisions about how we use our ocean.[00:34:00]
So Katy Bland, welcome to Time and Tide. It's a pleasure to have you here. I'm very excited to get into the work that you do around how people interact with the Gulf of Maine through our own uses of it. But first I really want to get into your own relationship with the Isles of Shoals.
Katy Bland: Yeah. I started, I first interacted with Appledore Island as a student back when I was an undergrad, did an underwater research class. I came back as a visiting researcher. I was lab coordinator out there for two years. I got to visit Liz on White Island.
Brian Yurasits: Was there in your time a unique wildlife, uh, encounter or experience that you had that really sticks with you?
Katy Bland: Yes. There are so many because you're just, you're living in a seabird colony, you're on a small island in, you know, in the middle of the ocean. So you're always interacting with marine life. And I think the one that stands out for me the most is I was snorkeling right off the dock on apple door and, you know, right at the surface in Babs [00:35:00] Cove and looked up and there was a huge school of mackerel coming towards me.
And so they were, I don't know, at least a couple hundred. And then they just went right around me and I heard my internal monologue going, holy mackerel. And I was like, okay, now it's I, maybe that's where it comes from.
Brian Yurasits: How did you feel about living with and among seabirds being the terns and the gulls and just the constant noise?
Katy Bland: No, I got used to it. I didn't think I would, but pretty quickly you get used to it. You know, I started to sleep extremely soundly to it. You don't hear the foghorn, you don't hear the seabirds.
Brian Yurasits: So you work for New Hampshire Sea Grant, you work for Maine Sea Grant, and you work for NERACOOS. What is the thread that connects your work with, with Sea Grant and NERACOOS altogether?
Katy Bland: The thing that brought me into this position was that offshore wind energy development was coming to the Gulf of Maine and NERACOOS and New Hampshire Sea Grant had said, we need someone to be paying attention to this. We know it's affecting our end [00:36:00] users, our coastal communities.
We need someone that's like understanding the bigger picture here and how it relates to us. And then last year, that expanded to also include Maine Sea Grant working with the Governor's Energy Office on the Maine Offshore Wind Research Consortium. Offshore wind energy development has kind of been the string among those three roles.
Brian Yurasits: For anyone who's never heard of NERACOOS, how would you describe their mission and, and the work as a whole? I'm reading those last words, coastal ocean observing systems, sounds like there's a lot of data that's being collected and what kind of information does NERACOOS work with and where are they getting that information from?
Katy Bland: It's ocean data for decisions. So it's all kinds of ocean data, a lot of it is based on buoy data. They're collecting, you know, real time sea state conditions. So that's surface winds, surface currents, wave height, wave period, um, temperature, salinity, and then they're collecting all these variables down to the sea floor.
Those are run in the [00:37:00] Gulf of Maine, primarily by University of Maine and University of New Hampshire. But NERACOOS is kind of this network that brings it all together as a cohesive observing system and is trying to see it as a big picture for different ocean users. And those users are commercial fishermen, it's, you know, weather service, Coast Guard, it's surfers, you know, recreational boaters. It's looking at the system as a whole and trying to address a whole bunch of needs with different data streams.
Brian Yurasits: For anyone out there listening, I mean, chances are you use this information on almost a daily basis if you live, work, or play anywhere near the Seacoast.
I mean, I used it this weekend when Hurricane Erin came up and I was going surfing.
When I spent some time with Liz on the dock, uh, right before we were about to get out to the Isles of Shoals, she had mentioned that this was a pretty cold year for the water. She had actually been seeing more of the sand lance that the terns typically feed on rather than butterfish, which she had seen more so in the past few years. How would decision makers really benefit from having information on where terns are moving in the Gulf of Maine and where are, where they are feeding and what they're feeding on.
Katy Bland: Over the past couple years, I've been really steeped in offshore wind energy development and understanding the different processes that are happening there and the timelines and the different decision points, and their research gaps. And there�s groups that are trying to coalesce knowledge right now and see the bigger picture and identify the highest priority gaps.
You know, one of those gaps [00:40:00] that Liz has seen, you know, she is a scientist looking at terns and she is doing a lot on their ecology.
And so we kind of are trying to bring together the science that she's working on with, you know, kind of my insight into these different processes that are happening in the Gulf of Maine. So for example, with offshore wind energy development, there was this siting process where they're trying to figure out the best place to potentially put offshore wind energy. And to figure out the best place they did this suitability analysis. They are stacking all kinds of layers on top of each other and, you know, seabird distribution and fisheries.
But all of those layers are incomplete. You know, there's caveats for all of them. And the more data we have, the more it can go into those layers and have a more representative picture. It can be a little bit more accurate. Each new piece of data that we have can strengthen [00:41:00] our knowledge of those and strengthen what story that data tells and the people that are making the decisions then have a lot more to go off of.
Brian Yurasits: And you need recent data because as we know, like everything, this whole system is changing very quickly. Other than offshore wind is there any other human uses of the ocean that you see potential for occurring in the Gulf of Maine in the near future at all?
Katy Bland: There's marine carbon dioxide removal, MCDR.
It's very early in its research stages. Um, there's different emerging industries like that, that, you know, we're trying to be aware of. Over time, new industries are gonna pop up.
You know, 40 years ago, I'm sure they wouldn't have imagined MCDR being a potential thing to be talking about. Forecasting into the future, it's hard to think about what we don't know right now, but that's why it's important to have a really solid [00:42:00] foundation of knowledge so that those data can be used for whatever they're needed for in the future.
Brian Yurasits: In order to make the best decisions possible, it sounds like you need to spend time, significant amounts of time out there, significant amounts of funding out there to understand these animals, to know the right questions to ask to collect a longer term set of data.
I wonder if you could talk about like the importance of having this long term data and this investment in long-term information so we can make the best decisions possible. I'm curious what's the value in that for like the end users of that information?
Katy Bland: I mean, it is based on like the nature of how long it takes to get that expertise, and get that research going and have a field station out there and all the logistics of having a research group out on a rock six miles off shore, that can't just start overnight. You can't just be saying, oh, here's a research gap that we need to fill so that we can have an answer in a year. Like it's [00:43:00] important to be able to be building that up over time and supporting that consistently.
So that when certain processes have trigger points or have certain data needs, it's there and ready to go and can be funneled right into it. There's a lot that we can anticipate that's happening, but I feel like it's especially important for the things that we can't anticipate. We live in such a dynamic ecosystem and world, and there's no way to be able to spit up research like that.
It's incredibly important for that, and also to be able to understand change over time. You can't just look at something in a moment in time and be able to say everything about it. You need to have contextualization and you need to see change over time and how that varies across seasons and across years and how that correlates with different um, environmental conditions.
Brian Yurasits: Like who would be using this information that's coming out of Liz's research? Is it like US Fish and Wildlife Service? Is it the Coast Guard, like BOEM, maybe, [00:44:00] like who would be using the data that Liz is collecting on terns out there?
Katy Bland: With the example of offshore wind energy development, the data is going to US Fish and Wildlife Service.
They are using it in collision and risk assessment models. Biodiversity Research Institute is also using it to understand vulnerability assessments for different parts of the Gulf of Maine. That's going to regulators. So when you know a regulator is having some kind of process like offshore wind energy development, they have to consult with other agencies like Fish and Wildlife Service.
So then Boem is bringing that data into their process. By Liz and her research team and groups that she works with, by them making this data public and putting it in different repositories, with caveats, and with proper metadata, and with an understanding of what this actually means, it can be used in so many different places.
Brian Yurasits: So Katy, what would a Gulf of Maine where terns and seabirds and human uses are coexisting successfully look like?
Katy Bland: I don't know what the future for that looks like, but I guess I think more about like the way that we [00:45:00] get to that future and I think more about like getting to whatever that looks like is about bringing in all, all the voices, you know, getting fishermen to the table to talk about what they need and what the Gulf of Maine means to them and where they fish.
Making sure that, you know, the data sets that are used are used in a way that actually makes sense. It's about the process and not having it be rushed or missing certain groups. It's about like consultation with tribes and bringing tribes into this process so that it works for everyone.
Brian Yurasits: So for you, it's not, it's not about the final destination per se, it's more about who's in the vehicle, or boat with you on that ride out there. Thank you, Katie. I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your insights into how people are using the Gulf of Maine and how we can interact with, uh, seabirds in the best way possible and most informed way possible.
Katy Bland: Thanks. Yeah, it's been great chatting.
Brian Yurasits: I figured what better way to close off this [00:46:00] episode than with some of my own field notes from my first ever excursion to White and Seavey Islands with Liz and her amazing team. In no particular order, here it goes.
I'm very glad that I brought a wide brimmed hat with me to the island.
Don't watch the movie The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock before visiting the Isles of Shoals.
Terns are incredible animals. They're truly agile in flight and designed for life at sea.
It was also incredible to sit in a bird blind alongside Caitlin watching for birds as they return reliably to their nesting sites.
Seabird chicks are adorable.
Anyone who spends time near the Piscataqua River has likely seen these two species of terns diving into the water during the summer months. Whether you're taking a stroll near Prescott Park, kayaking near Little Harbor, or following these diving birds as a fisher because they know where the bait is, the next time you see a tern, think about the distances that these animals travel and the spaces they require to not only survive, but to [00:47:00] thrive.
It's amazing to think about how we're directly connected to these small seabirds in so many different ways. It was really interesting hearing from Liz and Caitlin about how the diets of these seabirds are changing as the Gulf of Maine changes. What will these turns be diving for 10 years from now, and where will they be traveling for their food?
Witnessing the dedication that Liz, Caitlin, and the whole research team out there have for conserving and understanding these seabirds gives me hope. But it also makes me think about how important it is to have someone out there with such a depth of knowledge about these animals. It takes time and funding to understand how we can ensure a future where these animals continue to not only survive, but to thrive alongside us.
Thanks for listening to today's episode of Time and Tide. New episodes drop in on the first of each month. Don't forget to leave us a review and we'll see you next time as we swim with the current [00:48:00] scientific happenings in the granite state.

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