Terns at Donald McKay docks
Liberty Plaza, Central Square, East Boston
Photo by Soheil Zendeh, June 2000
Joe Pike told me three years ago that had observed “a lot of terns” off the new Shaw's Supermarket in Central Square, East Boston, on the old rotted piers and pilings that are the remnants of Donald McKay's schooner shipbuilding docks, dating to the mid-Nineteenth Century.
[Here is a map of where the docks are.]
I checked out the site and there were indeed “a lot of terns” there! In the past couple of years I have seen over 200 Common Terns courting, nesting and raising young on these rickety structures. On June 18 this year the estimate was 140 nests, and there were at least 7 young visible from our vantage point.
Naturally we can't go out on these docks. They are cut off from land access, and they are extremely precarious. There is a tremendous amount of construction going on right along the shore next to the docks—the new Harbor Walk funded by MassPort? What is needed is a new platform built somewhere nearby to accomodate these nesting birds safely in future seasons. We hope to be able to get this project funded and completed before the start of next year's nesting season.
Here are a couple of more images of these docks [click on the thumbnail]:
last updated: 8/15/2000
url: http://www.gis.net/~szendeh/terns.htm