Dune Road and the terns

Daughter Eva came visiting with a friend and the four of us drove down to Dune Road in the hope of finding some shorebirds or pelagics still on the move. Not too much luck. The best birds of the day were Black Skimmers working the inlets on the Dune Road side of Shinnecock Bay. There were terns but the only active colony seemed to be the Least Terns on the beach east of Ponquogue. Common Terns were fishing at the inlet and flying east over the Ponquogue Bridge, perhaps to the big spoil island on the east side of the bay (mostly a breeding grounds for Herring and Black-backed Gulls). We did see Piping Plovers at Tiana Beach.

Every morning on my walks down to Weesuck Creek, I look for flying terns and try to ID them. I'm better than I used to be but still not 100% especially when the birds stick to the opposite or Pine Neck side of the creek. The small Least Terns and the big Royals that come later in the summer (with an occasional Caspian Tern) can usually be picked out on size alone. Once in a while I see Black Terns and once -- after a hurricane -- Bridled Tern! In between are the Common Terns (which should be nesting in some numbers on the bay) and the similar medium-sized terns that (pardon the pun) turn up more rarely: Arctic (long tail, light back, short dark red bill) and Forster's Tern (long tail, silver-white primaries, longish orange bill with black tip). There's more: Roseate Tern (thin black bill, long tail, white mantle; may still breed on the bay but rarely comes up Weesuck way). Gull-billed and Sandwich Terns are most easily found on the beach at Cupsogue or Mecox Bay after late-summer storms but both are becoming more common on the South Shore of LI.

Later in the season, Forster's has a dark ear patch or mask that makes them easy to separate from everything else but in breeding plumage it has a black cap that makes it tricky to distinguish from Common and Arctic; the best field mark on the flying bird is flashing primary coverts that create a two-tone effect -- white & gray -- on the upper wings, visible even at a distance. They are fairly common in the late summer and fall but I am now seeing them in the spring coming up the creek., even seeming to outnumber the Commons.

Eric Salzman