Every morning we do a "chick check". We comb the island for common tern chicks that haven't been banded already. They get a band if they haven't had one put on yet, and we record which nest or area they came from. I got to handle birds that ranged from being only a couple minutes old to what we call "elephants": the awkward teenagers that are actually bigger in size than their parents and are up to 45-48 days old. Here are just a couple I snapped pics of, showing the range of ages, from just out of the egg to almost fledging.
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