royal terns, sandwich tern, and weird happenings on the beach

Coffee of the Day: Tanzania Peaberry
Bird of the Day: Royal Tern
Weird Wrack Item of the Week: plastic sea horse
Invisi-bird Status: haven't gotten the report yet. Biological staff confirmed the two fledglings I saw last week. Number actually seen by me today: Three adults or fledglings at a distance in the heat haze.

Tree Swallows and Several Species of Gulls and Terns Roosting on the Beach

What a gorgeous day! Bright sun, low humidity, and just enough sea breeze to keep the greenheads away.  When I arrived at 8 AM, the public area of beach was empty of visitors except for a couple of fishermen. The closed area of beach was covered with roosting birds. I have never seen this many swallows sitting on the ground in my life. I've seen millions of them swirling in the air, but never on the ground like this. They did fly around -- very low over the sand -- a bit, but they seemed to mostly walk around and peck at some form of insect life on the sand. The usual gull roost was more populous and more varied. I spent a couple of hours trying to get a good look through the heat haze at a couple of unusual looking terns in their midst.

Blue Sky Over Lot 1 Boardwalk

My first few visitors only had questions about fish, as in "where are the stripers?" Even my first bird question was really about stripers, as in "is that an osprey that just caught that schoolie?" I don't know where the fish are. My usual clue to where the fish are is where the birds are. The birds were mainly on the beach, not fishing. That indicates to me that the fish are somewhere else. As for the osprey, yes! It was a very dramatic catch. The osprey was fairly close to shore and made a perfect catch. The fishermen and I got a great look at the osprey and the fish, which was indeed a juvenile striped bass. (For those not from this region, "schoolie" is the local word for "juvenile striped bass".) The osprey, with fish, flew off over the dunes, presumably back to the nest. Quite a show.

Orange Plastic Seahorse

I was too busy with visitors and tern identification to spend much time walking the wrack line, which may be the reason why for the first time in history I did not see a single Hooksett disc. Someday I need to write a book about the Hooksett discs but can't figure out how to make it as compelling a story as either the rubber duckies or the sneakers (famous marine debris stories).  I did spot a few plastic objects, almost all of them orange. Seriously, shovels, buckets, toys, fireworks/shotgun shell casings, rope ... all orange. My favorite was a plastic sea horse. Very orange.

Biological Staff about to be Dive-Bombed by Least Terns

The least terns were at their feistiest, calling constantly and attacking anything that moved. I witnessed one single least tern strafing a roost of hundreds of tree swallows. The tree swallows rearranged themselves a little but did not leave.  A lone least tern took on a great black back and drove it off the beach. Very impressive. The black back did return with a very obvious white stripe of you know what on its black back. The least tern air defense command won all subsequent confrontations too. I don't envy biological staff having to census the least tern colony.

Great Black Back

The tree swallows eventually moved on and the gull/tern/cormorant roost grew in numbers. I think what had attracted all those swallows was a recent hatch of winged ants. There were still plenty of winged ants around and the ring-billed gulls moved in where the swallows had vacated.

Low-Flying Plane

Flying conditions for general aviation craft were perfect and there were a lot of them. I need to get a general aviation craft field guide :-). I watched one plane do barrel rolls and another doing some kind of stall turn. One plane made a very low pass over the waterline that attracted much attention on the beach.

Crowd of Birders Scoping the Royal Terns and the Sandwich Tern

In between visitors, I narrowed down the ID of 2 of the odd terns to either Caspian or Royal. With the heat haze and without a scope (I stopped bringing my scope to plover warden shifts several years ago -- too much to carry) I couldn't be sure. I noticed a birder on the beach behind me with a scope so walked over and asked him about the terns. He gave me a look through his scope (this is very generous because 99.999% of birders are way taller than me and have to lower the tripod for me to take a look). We agreed that the two very large terns were indeed Royal. The other odd one was roosting in a depression in the sand behind a herring gull, so we couldn't get a good enough look at it for positive ID. This was my first Massachusetts sighting of Royal Tern (and obviously first Plum Island sighting too)! I tried to to tweet the sighting but didn't have a good enough connection.

Later on, I noticed that many birders had gathered on the platform at the Lot 1 boardwalk and were all pointing their scopes at the gull/tern roost, so word had gotten out about the "odd" terns.

The Weapon

The beach filled up with tons of visitors, including lots of unsupervised children. A couple of boys were throwing balls of seaweed at gulls. They got close to the boundary and were throwing things (not always seaweed) into the closed area so I casually said "hey guys..." I thought I'd gently gotten my point across, but soon they were back. One boy threw a stick, which I immediately noticed was about to hit me in the head. Completely reflexively my hand, with Moleskine notebook still in it, went up to protect my face. The stick bounced off the notebook, thus saving my left eye from a really nasty injury. The kids ran away before I even recovered from the shock. Nearby visitors made sure I was OK.  They wondered where the parents of said kids were, but we were unable to track them down.  There was no point in calling law enforcement, since the kids had taken off and I was uninjured. This incident is definitely one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me during a plover warden shift.

The Moleskine Notebook that Saved my Eye

Several people have pointed out that it's lucky I still keep my bird notes in a real notebook as my iPhone would not have saved me -- imagine a stick in my eye AND a broken iPhone -- shudder.

Now back to the uplifting good parts of the day.  A low flying helicopter buzzed the beach, but did not disturb the roosting birds. What is it with everybody flying so low?

As I was leaving the beach, the guy who had let me look through his scope earlier was now up on the boardwalk and called out to me that the other mystery tern was a Sandwich Tern.  Cool! When I got up onto the boardwalk, I observed both the "King" and the "Prince" of Plum Island (Tom Wetmore and Doug Chickering) had joined the scrum. Doug generously let me look through his scope at the Sandwich Tern. The view was unobstructed by gulls so I could be certain of the ID. Wow! Two awesome Plum Island records for me! Royal Tern and Sandwich Tern. What a great day!

Serious Looking Gull

flight

Coffee of the Day: Ethiopian Harrar
Bird of the Day: piping plover
Weird Wrack Item of the Week: a plastic funnel that has been here since May (just moved further south and further up on beach)
Invisi-bird Status: Refuge beach: 25 pairs, 15 nests, 19 chicks; Sandy Point: 4 pairs, 1 nest, 6 chicks; Town beach: 2 pairs, 1 nest, 4 chicks. Number actually seen by me: 3 - 1 adult + 2 chicks.

Looking South at Pre-Arthur Clouds

After last night's thunderstorms and in anticipation of Hurricane Arthur, I was convinced my shift would be rained out yet again. However, it was not raining when I got up. In fact there were patches of clear sky over my house.  The Pre-Arthur clouds over the beach did look threatening, but it was indeed not raining on the beach when I got there.

Anybody Here?

Before I even set up my chair, I heard the distinctive peep-lo call and spotted an adult piping plover. It proceeded to run up to the wrack line and hunker down in a depression in the sand. As I played hide and seek with the adult, two chicks ran around catching flies and becoming invisible then reappearing. The adult did the distraction display to divert the attention of a menacing great black back and the chicks scampered away to hide.

Look! An Invisi-bird

The least terns were playing the invisi-bird game too. I watched as two of them landed on the beach just above the wrack line and flattened themselves against the sand. They were indistinguishable from the bits of shells and seaweed.  It was the kind of day when most of the birds gather on the sand and rest. A couple of the least terns flew and dove into the surf, but quickly joined their fellows on the sand. A pair of common terns hunkered down at a safe distance from the great black backs. One herring gull went after the bait fish on a fisherman's line unsuccessfully. Two sanderlings landed near the piping plovers and least terns. Isn't it kind of early for sanderlings? Anyway, the adult piping plover chased them off.

I assumed the piping plover chicks had not yet fledged even though they looked pretty close to ready because they repeatedly ran and hid when threatened and because they seemed to be relying on the adult for good hiding places. As I was musing about this, one of them took off and flew a few feet down the beach. The second one followed after about a minute. Did I witness their first flight? It was pretty cool.

It's Raining!

Big Steve came out onto the beach to extend his trademark stick fence. While I was telling him about what I had just seen the fledglings do, it started to rain a tiny bit. As I debated whether to pack up, the rain intensified. As soon as I packed up and got up onto the boardwalk, the rain turned back drizzle, then back to rain, then to nothing (briefly). Somebody in the parking lot told me everybody was coming back because the rain was over. By the time I got from the parking lot to the gatehouse, you guessed it, it was raining again. And so on and so forth all the way home.

loomings and least terns (Friday's shift)

Lines of Wrack

Coffee of the Day: Ethiopian Yirgacheffe
Bird of the Day: least tern
Weird Wrack Item of the Week: a prescription bottle (empty)
Invisi-bird Status: Refuge beach: 11 pairs, 5 nests; Sandy Point: 5 pairs, 3 nests; Number actually seen by me: 1.

The first thing I noticed when I started my shift was the very steep berm. My photo doesn't really capture it, but the slope of the beach between that leftmost (in the photo) line of wrack and the water line is really steep.  There was a fair amount of sand roiled up by the waves too, so more sand was arriving as the tide came in.

Wrack Item of the Week

 Trash-wise, the big change was that the pink plastic kiddie car on the town beach is finally gone! Did some child finally claim it? Did the tide pull it back out to sea? Did beach cleanup volunteers pick it up? I guess we'll never know.  In general, there was a lot less plastic trash in the wrack.  The weirdest thing I found was a green plastic prescription bottle.  It was empty of both prescription and message. It would be weird to send out a message in a prescription bottle anyway. The other weird item was a funnel I spotted on the closed area of the beach. I'm picturing a giant hermit crab adopting it as a hat. :-)

Runner Up for Wrack Item of the Week

While scanning the closed area with my binoculars, I spotted something that looked like a really tall piece of driftwood -- like a tree standing upright or something. It was hazy enough that I figured it was a looming (a mirage in which objects below the horizon seem to be raised above their true positions). I've had the experience of a great black back looking the size of a toddler, so I thought nothing of it for a few minutes. Once I'd finished my coffee, I noticed that the looming was moving. As I got a better view, I realized it was a person. I radioed Gatehouse and described the location as between lots 2 & 3. Eventually, Unit 8 arrived on the beach and took a look. He doesn't have as much experience staring at the beach, so wasn't sure where each of the boardwalks comes out. After watching the person walk up toward the dunes and back toward the water, 8 set out on the refuge road to see if there were any vehicles in lots 2 or 3 that might give a clue. The only vehicle he found was a refuge vehicle that Gatehouse confirmed was Frank. I doubt that it was Frank on the beach at that spot. Anyway, the person disappeared before I left. I'm now, in 20/20 hindsight, thinking that the haze did throw off my perception of distance and the trespasser was considerably south of lot 3 and was merely being projected above the horizon. Dang, I guess I need more experience with loomings.

Invisible

Meanwhile, a squadron of least terns flew over my head bearing fish. I narrowly dodged a stream of least tern excrement. The least terns were very active fishing and then flying to the southwest. I'm guessing they're setting up housekeeping somewhere to the southwest of where I was standing. The leasties outnumbered the common terns by quite a few.  They were definitely the most noticeable avian life form of the day.

Visible

One piping plover put in an appearance for about a half hour feeding along the water line and around the big piles of seaweed washed up.  It kept vanishing behind the piles of bladder wrack and kelp. I managed to get a photo of it between piles.

For such a gorgeous day, visitor action was slow. I only spoke with one visitor, who wanted an update on how many nests there are.

To recap: 1 piping plover, 1 visitor, and 1 trespasser (who may or may not have been a mirage). Just another day on the beach.