Common Tern colony
The Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) began nesting in the Škocjanski zatok Nature Reserve in 2007, shortly after the area was renaturalised. In the first year, it nested in the brackish lagoon with three pairs, and its population has been increasing every year since. In 2025, the colony reached a record 240 pairs.
In Slovenia, the Common Tern once nested along major rivers, but today it survives only at a few artificially created nesting sites – including Škocjanski zatok. Our colony occupies muddy islets covered with salt-tolerant vegetation.
The islets newly created in 2023 significantly increased the available nesting habitat. In just a few years after their construction, the tern population increased by 140% – from 100 pairs in 2022 to 240 pairs in 2025.
Sharing the colony with the common tern are also the Little Tern (Sternula albifrons), the Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus), the Common Redshank (Tringa totanus), and the Kentish Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus). You may spot some of these species as well.
The camera and the small solar panel were installed in the colony in spring 2025. Due to the small size of the solar panel, the camera cannot record continuously. Therefore, when motion is detected, the camera takes at least 30 seconds of footage and sends it to us via the mobile network. At the end of the day, the software glues together all the footage from the previous day and broadcasts it here on the website with a one-day delay.
The number of daily shots depends on the sensitivity, which can be varied according to the battery level. Therefore, you can expect more shots in sunny weather and fewer shots in prolonged periods of cloud cover.
