Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 13:46:10 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Peter A. Webb" Subject: Roseate Terns at Skimmer Island, Ocean City, MD Wed. June 28, 2000 Comments: To: marvadel@egroups.com, voice@capaccess.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Roseate Terns at Skimmer Island, Ocean City, MD Wed. June 28, 2000 Some recently reported Roseate Tern sightings: May 27 Cape Henlopen point, Delaware June 2, 3, 5 Cape May, New Jersey Sun June 11 Skimmer Is., Ocean City: Stan Arnold, 3 subadult (white forehead) ("mystery terns") Wed 28 noon Skimmer Is., Ocean City: Pete Webb 2 adult (black forehead) Wednesday morning, in the rain, I decided to break away for a couple hours from a family vacation in Ocean City and do some birding. I arrived at 3rd Street to look across at Skimmer Island ("Fourth Street Flats" to us old-timers). I waited an hour for the rain to stop long enough to get out the scope, and saw Royal and Common Terns, and that more were on the far side of the sandbar at the south end of the southern of the two islands. Saw plenty of Herring Gulls and their babies, fluffy cute chicks with practically no wing or tail. Also present were the usual Black Skimmers giving the islands their name and some American Oystercatchers and a Snowy Egret or two. I drove across the Rt 50 bridge and parked in the "No Parking 12 - 5 am" zone (then about 11:45 am) overlooking the crab restaurant and walked back to the end of the bridge. I saw Royal Terns with babies, Common Terns with babies, Skimmers with babies in the nesting area, but no hoped-for Sandwich Terns among the crowd. Closer to the water's edge another group of terns was visible, mostly Common Tern adults, with at the southern end of the group a few Royal Terns and two smaller terns that caught my attention scanning with binoculars because they looked SLIGHTLY smaller and noticably slimmer than the Commons, with fine, needle-like BLACK bills. The birds were preening and taking their ease as were the other terns at this "leisure bar"; no babies or incubating birds at that spot. The two smaller birds were close to Royal Terns but not to the Common Terns; they weren't at that time intermingled with or near any of the Common Terns. Upon closer examination with the Questar, they proved to have white tail plumes extending well beyond their wings, which were shorter than those of a second-summer Common Tern which wandered in nearby for comparison. The Common Tern looked noticably chunkier and longer-legged by comparison. Their legs were orange-red; I saw no reddish color at the base of the bills. Their bills probably weren't really longer than the Common Tern's but seemed that way due to the long, slim needle look to them. In contrast to Stan Arnold's "mystery terns" of June 11, these two appeared to be full adults with black foreheads extending right down to the base of the bill. The lighting was subdued with cloudy skies, but I saw no hint of color on the undersides. A Black Tern wouldn't have the long white tail plumes these birds had, more similar to a Common or Forster's Tern in breeding plumage. A Forster's Tern wouldn't have the fine, black needle-like bill. A Forster's Tern would also have LONGER legs than a Common, not shorter. A Least Tern wouldn't have the needle-like, black bill nor the long white tail plumes extending well beyond the wing tips, and WOULD have a white forehead. So it still pays to get to the Rt 50 bridge and scan through the terns and others on Skimmer Island during the crowded Ocean City summer. Maybe NEXT time I'll spot a Sandwich Tern. Pete Webb Baltimore, Md pwebb@bcpl.net Pete Webb pwebb@bcpl.net (home, after 6) pew@niroinc.com (work, 830-5 M-F) ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================