I can’t say a lot about terns because I’ve almost never seen them. This will be a short one. Remember when I saw a great blue heron take a dump in breathtaking detail at the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge? On the same trip, I had a shitty long-distance view of what I took for seagulls – but they were weird. Imagine a seagull with a raspy screeching cry and a bright carrot-orange beak, still flying in the usual seagull way, over the water. Now imagine those weird seagulls would occasionally dive for fish, like an osprey or kingfisher. Fucked up, right?
Those were caspian terns. I was too far away to see the black cap on their heads, but based on where and when we were, it had to be them. Some years later – 2024 in fact – I heard their call while visiting the rose garden at Point Defiance, and glimpsed a small group of them flying through the treetops. More recently, they were one of the short list of suspects for a bird sighting I’ve never been able to get solid about.
That’s all you get, because that’s all I got. Share tern stories below?
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I’ve never taken a tern for a seagull, but I did hear about someone who was at a sausage festival when he suddenly took a turn for the wurst.
I’ll let myself out. 😛
hey u think terns ever steal a sausage?
I like terns. Common terns and arctic terns, which are both thrush or grackle sized are fairly common here in Finland. Terns are fun to watch when they are fishing. They seem to be working really hard for the catch they get. It must have been something like one in ten dives to see them emerge from the water with a fish in their beaks.
Caspian terns do exist here in Finland but I’ve never seen one, I think I would remember seeing a crow sized tern. In Finnish the Caspian tern is called “räyskä”, which is onomatopoeic. Tern in general is “tiira”.
thx for the extra info! and gawdammit I saw those mystery birds again. very tight formation, bright white, low altitude. arggh!