Our first nest now has 2 eggs in it, and the parents appear to be incubating the eggs.  Little Terns lay 2 to 3 eggs, and don't begin to incubate until their clutch is complete.  They would leave the egg or eggs untended for large amounts of time, only beginning to sit on the eggs for any amount of time when they decide that the clutch is complete.  These parents must be settling for 2 eggs in their nest, and with any luck, in two and a half to three weeks we should see our first chicks.  We haven't located any other nests yet, but now that the weather has settled there is a lot more activity of digging out nest holes, so we should see more over the next few days.
This particular nest is a lot more sandy than the usual Little Tern nest.  With all the sand that was blown around in the strong winds over the last week there is a lot more sand on areas of the shingle bank than usual.

The first Little Tern egg was found at Baltray yesterday evening.  It was a single egg in an area that we'd been closely monitoring as it was an area they had been landing in a lot.

Great to see things finally getting underway!

Still no signs of any Little Tern eggs at Baltray despite all the signs that nesting is imminent.

The strong winds in the last few days will have made conditions unpleasant for the birds, with sand being blown along at ground level, and this may well be the reason that they have held off laying any eggs yet. 

There were at least 40 Little Terns there yesterday with a lot of activity and courtship behaviour so we imagine we should see eggs now when this strong wind dies down.

The fencing work at Baltray is now complete, and the Little Tern are protected by both chicken wire fencing and electric fencing.

The birds seem to be coming and going from the site at the moment.  This seems to be the same pattern as last year, where the numbers appeared to drop just before they actually nested.  They may need to spend more time at sea feeding at this time, building themselves up for producing eggs.

We expect that they will begin to lay eggs very soon now.

Work has been continuing on the fencing at Baltray.  The chicken wire fencing was completed on Saturday but there is still a lot of work to be done on the electric fencing, which we have worked on for the last two nights.

The Little Terns are very active at the nest site but there are no signs of any eggs yet.  We won't expect them to start laying eggs for about another week.

A great day's work was done at Baltray getting the fencing up and a huge thanks to all who turned out -
Margaret and Tommy Reilly from early morning, Kieran Campbell, Paddy Carolan, Billy Clarke, Eithne and Chris Gilchrist, Cathal Johnson and Julian, Mark Johnson, Andrew Kelly, Anto Kerins, Susan McKeever, Mick Reade, Sean Smith, and Brendan.

The weather was fantastic and while it was hard work, it was a very enjoyable day.

Plenty of Little Tern activity. There seems to be at least 70 around at the moment and the sky was full of their chattering throughout the day.

The enclosed area this year is slightly larger than last year.  Watching the Little Terns after the work was finished, they all appeared to be landing within the enclosure so hopefully when they nest, all the nests will be protected by it. 

After we put the string cordon up a couple of weeks ago, people and dogs were still seen to be going into the restricted area and dogs were seen chasing and harrassing the birds, so hopefully the little terns will find they have much more peace on the beach now.

We will be erecting the main part on the fencing on the beach at Baltray tomorrow from midday and are looking for as much help as possible as it is a major job.

Anyone available to give a hand please contact me at info@louthnaturetrust.org , or phone or text 086 8625901.

Great activity with the Little Terns at the beach in Baltray yesterday.

Margaret was there late morning as the tide was coming in and counted 26 on the ground and there were more flying around.  They were checking out the nesting area, which looks to be more or less the same area as last year, and they were digging and testing potential nest sites.

I did a count at dusk last night which tends to be the best time to get a full count.  It was difficult though to count them last night as they settled for the night quite a way out, but I managed to count 54 there.  These were the ones that were visible so the number would be higher than that.  Earlier in the evening I counted over 60 out at the tide. 

The nest found on the beach at Baltray turned out not to be abandoned.  A Ringed Ploved was sitting on the eggs yesterday evening.  We plan to extend the cordon around this nest to offer it some protection.

Sean Smith found a nest on the shingle yesterday evening with 3 eggs in it.

We are assuming that these must be Ringed Plover eggs which look very similar to Little Tern eggs.

The nest appeared to be abandoned as the eggs were partially covered with sand, but we'll keep an eye on it just in case.