Colonial nesting seabirds and wading birds need your help to ensure that they continue to prosper in the Gulf of Maine. With information, consideration, and restraint during their nesting season -- a critical part of their year -- we can all help protect these birds and the habitat they need to survive.

Although most colonial nesting seabirds in the Gulf of Maine spend the majority of their lives in the air or on the water, nesting islands are essential to their survival. Each year, the birds establish nesting colonies for breeding and raising their young. They usually prefer to breed on small, predator-free islands or ledges that are treeless -- either on bare rock or on ground that is grassy or covered with scrub plants like raspberries and wild roses.

Islands with these characteristics are extremely important for these birds and must be recognized and treated as special habitat. In many cases they support major breeding colonies and provide habitat for a diversity of species.

In general, colonial seabirds and waterbirds have long life spans (there is a record of a gull that lived over 30 years) and low reproductive rates (some of these species lay only one egg a year). Nesting populations fluctuate from year to year because of predation and changes in food supply and climate. Nest type varies from species to species, often allowing the same island to be used in several ways by several different kinds of birds.

Colonial birds tend to have small nesting territories and many pairs share an island when nesting. Nests in heron colonies, for example, can be spaced just "neck distance" apart from each other.

Although nesting in colonies allows efficient use of limited space for these birds and permits them to put up a common defense against predators (adults are known to mob predators) there are also serious disadvantages. Colonies are vulnerable to disturbance, habitat loss, and catastrophic events such as storms, disease, and oil spills.

The spring and summer seasons are especially important for colonial nesting seabirds. This is the time they court, mate, lay and incubate their eggs, and raise their young. Guillemots return to the same rock crevices each year, puffins and petrels re-use their burrows, eiders come back to the previous year's nest sites, and herons maintain the same stick nests in trees for many breeding seasons. In the Gulf of Maine, the nesting season lasts from April 1 to mid to late August. This is the time that state and federally-owned nesting islands in the Gulf are closed to visitors.

In recent years, many of the seabird nesting islands in the Gulf of Maine have sustained increased use by private boaters, commercial tourist operators, picnickers, and fishermen. Many people are not aware that landing their boats, letting their pets run loose, walking across nesting areas, or even staying too long in one spot may cause birds to abandon nest sites or prevent parent birds from returning to their nests to incubate, protect, and feed their young.

Since many species of colonial nesting seabirds nest in hidden crevices, burrows, vegetation, or on top of exposed rocky ledges, a careless step could destroy a bird's eggs for that year. Even approaching the birds or letting dogs run near them can make them abandon their nests and young, or at the very least can cause them to use energy reserves for defense instead of incubating eggs and feeding young. Birds flushed from their nests leave eggs vulnerable to predation by other birds and by mammals, and exposed to often fatal damage from heat, cold, and rain.

Disturbing nesting seabirds during the nesting season (April 1 through mid to late August throughout most of the Gulf of Maine) is extremely harmful to eggs and chicks. People should stay off these nesting islands during this time and direct their activities to the many suitable non-nesting islands.

Colonial nesting seabirds often share rocky islands and ledges with seals. Even if you do not see the birds themselves, a sign that you are getting too close to the island is if you see seals moving back into the water. You are even too close if the seals begin to get restless. If you see seals plunging back into the water and leaving their pups behind, move away as quickly and quietly as possible. Human activities such as fishing and boating in the waters around nesting islands should be far enough away to prevent flushing birds from their nests. If flushed, some birds will cry out overhead or attempt to dive at you in an effort to keep you away. Be sure to stay far enough away to keep this from happening.

During the nesting season, colonial nesting seabirds and waterbirds need nothing more from us than peace and quiet. Your understanding and cooperation will help keep these birds coming back to share the Gulf of Maine with us.

Excerpted from Island Ethics: Recognizing and Protecting Colonial Nesting Seabird and Waterbird Islands in the Gulf of Maine, produced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge, and the Gulf of Maine Project. For copies of the brochure, contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Gulf of Maine Program at 4R Fundy Road, Falmouth, ME 04105, 207-781-8364, or the Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge 207-546-2124.