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First monitoring of tern birds breeding in Kubber Island since 1987 |
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Sunday, 18 July 2010 00:26 |
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KUWAIT, July 17 (KUNA) -- The Orthinological Society of Kuwait (OSK) announced on Saturday that its team monitored the breeding of big tern birds for the first time on Kubbar Island since 1987.
OSK Chairman Abdullah Al-Sarhan told KUNA that the society organized a trip to Kubbar on July 6, with the participation of 19 members, to observe the number of breeding birds on the island.
The first registration of this breeding in Kubber was on June 11, 1905, when Sir Percy Cocks, who visited the island and collected two eggs laid by this bird.
The team members monitored seven pairs of big tern birds, three of which sat in their nests that had one egg in each, while the rest were still in the mating stage and building nests, Al-Sarhan noted.
A number of environmental factors led to the breeding of the small and big tern birds, namely the heavy rainfall and the subsequent growth of the 'Swaida' bush-tree and other seasonal dry plants, all of which provide protection from the heat of the sun, especially for newly-hatched chicks, he added.
The team found nests of big and small tern birds, located at no more than 30 centimeters apart, while the birds of both colonies never fought.
Some 3,000 big tern birds were monitored in 2010, while 2200 were monitored in 2009.
Kubber Island is now the only suitable environment for the breeding of this bird, where in the past it used to also breed on the islands of Boubyan, Oha and Umm Al-Maradim. - Kuna
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