Watch Your Terns on the Bridge

From Blogger Pictures

  Now that the coal ship is freed from the Trenton Channel I wanted to talk about terns on the bridges. Not the bad turn the ship made or anything to do with a car or truck. I'm talking about the little black capped water birds you may see diving in the water for food, the common tern. As you drive over one of the bridges look on either side at the big protection cribs. On these islands are colonies of nesting terns. You can also see these from a fishing boat if you slow down and stand up, just don't get too close because the terns are protected now. This is thanks in part to Bruce Szczechowski who did a Masters thesis on this bird and how they've been affected by our industrial abuse to the river.


    Bruce is a teacher at Anderson High in Southgate and with John Nasarzewski they formed the Downriver Citizens for a Safe Environment(DCSE). The Stream Team is an off shoot of the group and offers a chance for students to help with projects they may not have a chance to at their current school. The team cleans up stream, bands birds, created and cares for the Southgate Community Nature Preserve and performs Downriver Benthic Monitoring w/ Wayne County. This is a great experience for anyone interested in helping the areas ecology. But back to Bruce.

From Blogger Pictures

    Bruce's became interested in the areas ecology at an early age when his biophilic bonds became strong while riding a bike along the shores of the Detroit River. This was when he first notice the terns nesting on the cribs guarding the bridges. Little did he know that the fascination with the tern would take him on a fabulous journey throughout the Great Lakes Region. In obtaining his Masters Degree from Michigan Technological University Bruce found that the nesting pairs of terns had dropped from 4000 in the 1960s to just 300 now. He contributes this to many factors including predation from gulls and night herons to chemical toxicity in the region. You may have received a survey from Bruce for one of his studies of the effects of legacy contaminants if not it can be found on the DCSE web site( http://www.dcseweb.org/dcse.php?page=index).

   So here's to Bruce for overlooking our ecological health and helping the local population of common terns to create new and improved nesting areas. Hopefully with Bruce's help some students from the Stream Team will carry on with more river monitoring. Also congrats to Bruce for getting a Masters Degree from Michigan's Toughest University!