For clarification and for the record, here is my account for yesterday
(Saturday, 9/6) - a long but rewarding day watching a Tropical Storm
come and go over Washington.  I arrived at Hains Pt. at 8:30 a.m. (after
my ANS field trip to Rock Creek failed to turn up any participants) and
joined a number of other birders at the tip - Mike & Joy Bowen, Barry
Cooper, Dave Czaplak, Jonathan Alderfer, Jon Dunn, Sherman Suter and Rob
Hilton (Gary Allport had already made an unsuccessful pass by the
point).  There wasn't much wind but plenty of rain of varying degrees of
intensity.  We watched intently at a lot of nothing for the most part. 
By 9:30 or 10:00 most of the group had left, and it was just me & Dave
Cz.  We held down the fort, and I eventually became one with the rain as
I was not well prepared and got drenched to the bone.  But at least it
wasn't cold.  Bird activity was pretty low, with the most common birds
being RING-BILLED & LAUGHING GULLS, CASPIAN & FORSTER'S TERNS,
DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANTS, and MALLARDS.  It was hard to tell how many
there were of each as they continued to fly up and down the river.  A
few yellowlegs flew over, 2 BLACK TERNS came out of nowhere and
disappeared down river, and sometime around 11:00 or so 2 COMMON TERNS
made a couple of passes by the point.
 
After noon the rain continued to come down pretty strong at times, and
the usual conversations about why we do these sorts of things came up,
although I don't remember if I actually had that conversation with Dave
or with myself ;-)  Mike Bowen returned at about 2:30, and we continued
to scan while trying to stay on the right side of the few cedars at the
tip.  Then at 3:20 p.m. (which I think is an hour later than reported in
Sherman's post), Dave happened to be scanning downriver and picked up 2
terns.  He quickly figured out that they were different than anything we
had seen earlier and cautiously called them as SOOTY TERNS.  He
immediately got our attention and we all got on the birds in our scopes
& bins.  The sighting was brief before the birds flew towards the middle
of the river and then downriver into the mist.  But we saw them long
enough to see a nice, dark uniform upper surface and limited white in
the underwing (only the wing linings and with dark primaries) in both
birds - aging them both as adult SOOTY TERNS (not adult & juvenile, as
Rob had posted).  Unfortunately we had no time for pictures.
 
I immediately texted Rob, Gary and Jonathan.  As you read in Sherman's
account, he, Jonathan & Jon were able to find 2 more Sooties 20 minutes
later and farther downriver.  Clearly they were different birds since
both of ours were adults and they saw an adult and a juvenile.  Rob &
Gary were both home, and both made quick plans to come back down. 
Unfortunately the gate was closed by this pont, which made access more
difficult.  A visit by a police officer wondering how we got in turned
out to be a non-event when we explained that we had entered the park
before the gate was closed and no one ever said that we had to leave. 
Eventually Gary, Jonathan, Jon & Sherman made it back to the point, and
we continued our vigil.  By this point the rain had finally let up,
which made the "sea watch" much more bearable.  And while we didn't see
any rare terns or other seabirds of note, diversity picked up with 3
SANDERLINGS (only my 2nd for DC), 1 COMMON NIGHTHAWK, BANK & BARN
SWALLOWS, and more CHIMNEY SWIFTS.
 
By 6:00 p.m. I was exhausted, but not too tired to stop at the north end
of the golf course to tick a BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER that the others had
found earlier, along with a few flyover CLIFF SWALLOWS.  A long day, but
lots of fun (at least by birders' standards).
 
Good birding,
Paul Pisano
Arlington, VA