DTE Energy spreads crushed limestone along the banks of the Detroit River on Slocum's Island, because such an item provides a popular nesting habitat for native common terns.
Common Era | Book of Common Prayer | Common | Court of Common Pleas | Common (rapper) | Boston Common | Common Moorhen | Chief Justice of the Common Pleas | Ohio Courts of Common Pleas | Common Sense Media | Common Lisp | Common fig | Fanfare for the Common Man | Common land | Common Chaffinch | Common Cause | Common Quail | Common European Framework of Reference for Languages | Common Emerald | Common Blackbird | Common Admission Test | Sooty Tern | RAF Greenham Common | Common Kingfisher | Common Eider | Clapham Common | Posse comitatus (common law) | Common Waxbill | Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt | Common Swift |
The difficult access and rocky cliffs makes this area an ideal location for a significant population of Cory's Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea borealis) and the Common tern (Sterna hirundo), that annually migrate through the Azores to nest, in addition to Capped Heron (Arrfea cinerea), the Sanderling (Calidris alba), the Kentish Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) and other marine birds such as Seagulls.
Other species breeding in the area are Marsh Harriers, Common Terns and Little Terns, and Great Cormorants - which have forsaken their usual breeding sites in reed beds and made their nests in the abandoned electrical pylons in the area.
Further down the tidal zone a visitor will often see Sandwich Tern and Common Tern, as well as a variety of Gulls and smaller waders including Redshanks, Greenshanks, Turnstones, Ringed Plovers, Pied Wagtails, and other Sandpipers.
The dominant faunal feature of the island - during the summer months at least - is the active Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) colony spread across the flatter areas of the island that are not taken over by bittersweet (Celastrus) or common reed (Phragmites australis).