The Star Goes To Hicks Island: Bringing Back Roseate Tern
They looked like seven conquistadors claiming El Dorado as they stepped from their boat and walked up the modest rise of sand, moss, beach grass, and cobble-sized stones that marks the north-to-south center of Hicks Island.
Their quest was a modern one, however: to put an end to the island's long absence of roseate terns, an endangered species. The "gold" they sought was a few hatched tern eggs, sometime in the future.
The boomerang-shaped island is longer than narrow and lies close to land - less than 100 yards across the swiftly-moving tidal race that separates it from the entrance to Napeague Harbor to the east and the fishing cottages of Shore Road and the Lazy Point launching ramp to the west.
Return-The-Tern
Hicks Island has gained in size because of dredged spoil placed there over the years. Roseates are known to have nested on its western tip as recently as the late 1980s, but only one or two pairs.
Larry Penny, director of the East Hampton Town Natural Resources Department, described the roseate as an "elegant" member of the tern family, black and white with fine-pointed wings and forked tail, and with a breast that turns "a suffusive pink at the beginning of the breeding season."
On Friday, Mr. Penny was joined by a staffer, Barnaby Friedman, and a neighborhood resident, Job Potter, who has been hired by the department for the duration of the return-the-tern project to oversee the building of "apartment complexes" for the prospective tenants.
George Larson, representing the state, came along, too. Hicks Island is state-owned.
Museum Ornithologist
The other conquistadors included Cathy Brittingham of the Nature Conservancy and Andrew Milliken of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the agency that lists endangered species. Mr. Milliken, while looking for likely roseate sites, also kept an ear cocked for the sound of piping plovers, another endangered bird.
But it was Helen Hays, representing the ornithology department of the Museum of Natural History, who dispensed wisdom about ways to lure roseates back to Hicks Island and suggested likely sites.
She should know. Since 1969, Ms. Hays has returned each May to Great Gull Island, between Plum and Fishers Islands, to watch over that small outcropping's colonies of common and roseate terns. Both have swelled, the commons from 3,000 the first year to 18,000 last year; the roseates from a few to over 3,000.
They Ought To, But . . .
But that's Great Gull. In East Hampton, the only place roseates are known to roost is at the Ruins, off Bostwick Point on Gardiner's Island.
Several pairs try to establish themselves each year at Cartwright Shoals on the opposite end of Gardiner's Island, but have been frustrated by the aggressive behavior of herring gulls.
"They should come here," said Ms. Hays, but she said it in a way - with a quick shrug - that spoke of the difference between what humans know and what they don't.
For instance, there was a well-established colony on Cedar Point in Northwest not too long ago, numbering as many as 200. The Cedar Point population has disappeared, perhaps because of predators, but no one is sure.
Bring In The Cousins
The key to luring roseates back here, said Ms. Hays, could be to attract them to Hicks Island along with their more aggressive - and thus protective - cousins, the common tern.
The birds are very different, she explained. While they may nest in the same general place, common terns like large, open, central areas, while roseates keep to the outside edges, where they seek shelter under cover of beach grass.
The others bowed to Ms. Hays's expertise in choosing the proper ground for what she insisted they should consider an experiment - "It may not work the first year." She recommended trying several locations on both the north and south sides of the island.
Location, Location
Each site had to fit the bill for natural cover and proximity to the water, but would be enhanced to attract roseates.
Ms. Hays recommended short ground cover. The group crisscrossed the island, approving and rejecting various spots. They finally zeroed in on four possible landing zones, one of them beside the chimney remnant of an old menhaden-processing plant.
Hoe-wielding volunteers began clearing this week, making circular center sections and narrow lanes leading to the water. Because the roseates prefer to nest in shelter, a low apartment complex - a two-by-four roof above with small blocks of wood interspersed below - is being provided.
The apartments would be more attractive if they had a back wall, Ms. Hays remarked, with the opening facing the sea. Such custom lodgings should be ideal, she said, although the birds have been known to nest "in a pile of boards or a potato basket."
Roseate decoys are being put in place to give the site a lived-in look. A tape recording of a roseate's call is set to play at intervals.
Ms. Hays stressed that the sites and their appointments had to be ready by April 27 in order to lure birds looking for a place to nest. The project is being paid for in part by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Interior Department, in cooperation with the Natural Resources Department.
Oystercatcher!
On the way back to the town boat for the short cruise to Lazy Point, heads turned to search for the source of a shrill cry.
"Oystercatcher!" the veteran birders exclaimed in unison, and there on the shore a strange-looking bird with an upturned orange beak searched for food.
The Fish and Wildlife Department's Mr. Milliken took his own roundabout route to the boat and reported hearing but not seeing a plover along the way.
Ms. Hays said it was only recently discovered that the endangered roseates traveled all the way to Argentina on their winter migrations, Punto Raso, to be exact. She said a scientist there had begun netting and attaching a small, orange flag to the birds to keep track. "You should look for the flags. They could come here," Mrs. Hays said.