| By Richard Boon | Pelagic Publishing | 2024 | Paperback | 134 pages, colour photos | ISBN: 9781784274894 |
The Publisher’s View:
A summer migrant to Europe from West Africa, the Little Tern is one of our most threatened and most captivating seabirds. This book is the story of one breeding season at the Beacon Ponds colony on the North Sea coast, near Spurn Point in East Yorkshire. In elegant and evocative prose it offers an intimate portrait of these endangered birds, covering everything from foraging and breeding to predators and conservation.
The colony’s small size means that it can be monitored, protected and documented in an unusual level of detail. Close observation of the birds’ behaviour and an in-depth knowledge of the natural history of their environment raise important questions about how and why we seek to preserve and protect species for whose decline we are ourselves largely responsible. A tight focus on the spectacular natural, geographical and cultural headland that is Spurn Point also provides new insights into the ecology of Little Terns. Covering the progress of the colony month by month, through an eventful spring and summer, Clinging to the Edge brings these charismatic and endearing birds vividly to life.
The Author: Richard Boon is chair of the Beacon Ponds Little Tern Project Management Committee. A retired academic who now volunteers for Spurn Observatory Trust, he also sits on its research committee. Richard has volunteered for the BTO and the RSPB, and has made occasional contributions to the birding press, most recently in British Birds.
Fatbirder View:
Sadly, my corner of the UK has, so far as I know, lost ALL of its Little Tern colonies. Being one of the overpopulated and over visited corners of the UK it suffers from the British Disease – Petsarefamilyitis. There is hardly a dog walker alive who cannot help but loose their mutt on the strand and delight in how clever the canine is to chase shorebirds from their rightful domain. When I was a lad and our population was half its present size and no household had more that one pooch or outdoor cat. Nesting shore birds were fine in the less dense north, east and west of the UK. Even this crowded southeast bit had less people with fewer pets and better attitudes.
Now that pets are treated like favourite sons who can do no wrong councils tremble with fear at banning them from beaches in summer… let alone when waders are struggling to survive the cold or get sufficient food to prep them for the fat consuming pressures of parenthood. Its no wonder Little Terns survive only where people and their pets are seldom seen or deliberately banned.
I see a few small rays of hope in this super read… that they suffer less from bird flu that other species may yet mean they can carve out a few abandoned places to cling to.
Fatbirder