A Sooty Tern arrived at the Centre on the 21 January. It could not fly due to being so weak and was in poor condition upon arrival.

It is a rare for a bird such as this to find his way so far inland. Normally they feed by diving for fish in the sea. They live in large flocks and can stay out to sea for 3 – 10 years either in the air or on the water. Normally they only land to breed. The only time they are found inland is after storms and that is how this ‘cool’ bird made its way to Moholoholo.

Every day he must be force fed fish every 3 – 4 hours and given 10ml water via a tube placed down its throat. Another difficulty we face with this bird is
finding fish. A gentleman from Phalaborwa 100kms from us kindly donated us sea fish which the bird of course prefers being a bird from the sea. All said and done he seems to be doing well and we hope to release him near the ocean soon.

We recently received a call stating that another Sooty Tern is on the way in just a few days. This tern was also found exhausted in the Kruger Park. Hopefully they will both make it and can keep each other company until their day of release. We will update you next month, hopefully on their release!

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