So, last night Linda and I gathered up a few critical items and took them to the basement in light of the tornado armageddon that was supposedly heading our way. Things you don’t want to be looking for in your neighbor’s lots should the winds rip your roof off. We then went about our normal business as that is life in the Midwest. As per usual, predictions here were completely off (well wishes to those much further north that took a twister to the gut). The real oddity was I ran Friday – 72F, ran on Sunday – 61F, rucked on Monday – 68F, ran yesterday – 80F, the front comes through last night and today I headed out – it’s 33F and snowing. My body does not take too kindly to shorts one day and then a heavy coat the next.
In order to accelerate the hand warming, decided to do some tapping on the keyboard and bring you another featured feathered friend.
One that also dislikes the cold winters and heads down to the Caribbean Islands and the northern shores of South America to keep its talons warm.
Hit the jump to read more about this diminutive Laridae family member.
You may not recognize the family name, but I am sure you have encountered a number of its members over your lifetime – even if you are not a hardcore birder. This group is comprised of Gulls, Terns and a few outliers like Skimmers, Kittiwakes and Noddies. Gulls dominate the family with 22 species (note, in what feels like annually, that number changes with the splits and mergers), but the Terns hold their own with 14 of their species in the group. Six of those I have never seen. Of the remaining, I’ve featured (best I can tell) another five of them and the remaining 3, well I have seen, but buried in the backlog queue.
Going to chip away at that backlog and bring you a new +1 to the blog, the Least Tern. Yes, I was going to go with a “Last but actually Least joke but you need to be a professional to use that level of humor ha. As mentioned, I have had the Least checked off for a while now and seen them on a couple of trips in the field – today, going with a series from our March trip to Texas, specifically our visit to the Port Aransas South Jetty. For those that do not recognize “Port A”, I have featured one of their primary hotspots numerous times as it happens to be one of our favorites – Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center. Maybe five minutes away is the south beach which includes my favorite jetty. Easy to get to as you can drive right up to it, a good portion of it paved, clean (vs Bolivar’s) and easy to navigate beyond the paved section (vs South Padre Island’s). Best of all, if you are there in the breeding months, they tend to have a variety of Terns. These Least’s were hanging out with a large flock of Royal Terns, Forster’s Terns and their beach Gull kin.
One of the best things about these Terns is they are easy to identify…er..clarify.. easy to identify in their breeding plumage. For those in the adult breeding stage, they can be identified by their yellow legs, black cap with a yellow forehead and the best identifier, bright yellow bill tipped in black. I have to say, you can also just look for the cutest damn bird on the beach. Oh, they are also named appropriately as they are, indeed, the smallest of all the Terns. Included this shot as it gives an excellent size reference next to a Sanderling. – granted, that may not help you if you have not seen a Sanderling, in which case you will have to trust me, it is small (8.7″ long on average – Sanderlings are only an inch smaller).
Just to close out the ID discussion, nonbreeding adults and juvis have dark bill, and “smudgy grayish crown” (per Cornell) which overlaps with several other Tern descriptions. Keep in mind the small stature and, at least for the adults, the yellow legs are a good indicator. Here’s some fun: Cornell says juvis have orange legs in their description, but then say it has yellow legs in their reference shot description, Peterson’s guide says the immatures have duller legs, Sibley depicts them as yellow and Stokes says the legs of adults are reddish orange and juvis are variably orangish – so you want to be a birder eh? Screw the feet, just look for the cutest bird out there with the white forehead and yellow bill with a black tip (yes, I know there are rare occurrences without the tip ugh).
Besides, it is hard to see the feet when they are in flight anyway.
On wing, they have a very sharp look about them from the head, to the tips of their wings all the way down to their forked tails. Note the very black fine line on ends of their flight feathers and a basic pale gray to white wash over the rest of their body.
Forgot to point out that during their frisky seasons, they can be found along the coastlines of the Atlantic and the lower portion of the Pacific – from the maps, it looks like they will also just forgo the migration and just hang in the Caribbean Islands during the breeding season. For those of you along the Midwest flyways, they can be found in the drainage rivers of the Mighty Mississippi. I’ve seen signage that implies they are down in the Alton, IL area, but we have not had the opportunity to visit when they are supposedly there.
And now we have come to the end ha.
Again, we leave the high level humor to the professionals, we just happen to like butt jokes hehehe. This way you also get the added benefit of seeing their little Joe Dirt mullets. When you’re sexy and you know it…
Take care everyone, for those in the region, I hope you were all spared the worst of the storms last night.
Wildlife Intrigued 
Terns are very beautiful in flight, beautiful wings! I’m glad the tornadoes stayed away. I called my sis in Michigan to be sure she is okay, the storms went south of her this time over the Detroit area. Be safe!
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They are definitely one of the more graceful and agile birds in flight – translated..can be a pain in the ass to get a picture of on flight ha. Glad to hear the tornadoes avoided your sister’s region. The bad weather literally split around us with the worst of it going north. You just never know when it comes to mother nature in the Midwest. We were having Vegas weather out here for a few days (mid 70s-80), but now back to reality and the temps plunged back in the 30-40s.
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Wow, I’m glad that crappy weather missed you guys too! We lived in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1968, I was 8 years young and heard a tornado passing near our home. It really did sound like a freight train, that sound has stayed in my head until this moment.
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Am I correct in assuming that the dark tip on their bill is an identifying feature?
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Unfortunately, as a singular trait, the dark tip is not enough to be assured of the ID, but add in the small stature and the white forehead are enough to distinguish it from all the other Terns. The Forster’s Tern is the one that can be easily confused if just looking at the bill as they also have a dark tip, although that tends to be further up the bill than the Least Terns. The Forster’s is larger though and its bill is orange(r). Then you have the Caspians which can also have a darker tip, but those birds are even larger than the Forster’s and they have a more reddish bill. Nature is definitely not making it easy on us ha. Thanks for coming by Anneli, we appreciate it.
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So you really need to have a couple of other identifiers to know for sure. I guess once you’ve seen them a few times, you get to know it’s not one of the other ones with black on the bill. Thanks for the explanation.
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With the black tipped bill it makes me think of those dipping bird toys, only this one dips its bill into an ink well.
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A) You are dating yourself Jerry and B) you are ABSOLUTELY correct on your association – I remember those dipping birds. Parents had one on their basement bar when I was growing up and laughed when I saw the same thing on Linda’s parents’ bar in their basement (we were apparently meant to be together ha). As a foreshadowing for the next post, think of that dipping bird with yellow ink in the well. Thanks for dropping in, we appreciate it.
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Nice shots! There’s a shopping center near me that is not near any water where Least Terns hang out. Seems so weird to see them there and not on sand or a jetty!
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Wow, that is an interesting place to find a Tern that is said to prefer the sand more than any other in their family. Fortunately, you still get a chance to see these incredibly cute birds. I wonder if you were to pour some sand in the parking lot if they would all flock to it hmmmm. Take care Donna and have yourself a great weekend.
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Oh the number of hours spent trying to catch that perfect dive… so little to show for it. 😳😳
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You got that right Ted – you have to wear waders to make it through the pool of shots discarded on the digital darkroom floor whenever I get done processing a day’s shoot of these agile fliers. They even give that slight up shot before they start their dive so you now when they are going to drop and it’s still a miracle when I get the splash right ugh. Appreciate you dropping in Ted.
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I was looking for more birding locations near Leonabelle, and here you provided this perfect little tern to introduce the Port A South Jetty to me! Perfect! As usual, I’m always impressed by your “from every angle” photos, and the BIF shots are wonderful!
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Here to serve Sam ha! Definitely check out the jetty if you are in the area, if nothing else it is an enjoyable walk to the end and usually a few Sea Turtles nearby to make it that much better. We also hit the nearby Robert’s Point Park to photograph the Dolphins racing the tankers as they pass through the channel..and more importantly watch the skies for those Magnificent Frigates that come in from time to time. I joke to the rest of the Intrigued staff that getting the shots from behind are the easy ones for me, getting shots of birds from the front is the hard part hehehe. Appreciate the kind words and thanks for dropping by.
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Superb photographs!
We’re blessed with a few coastal spots where terns and gulls feast on shallow-water fish. Fun to watch the aerobatics.
Very happy to hear the big winds missed you.
Last year, I took a few shots of a Least Tern and he landed nearby and took a few steps in my direction. I walked up the beach a bit and he continued to follow me. We kept going like we were best friends and came to the parking lot where a food truck was parked. I grabbed a breakfast sausage and offered it to my new friend which he snagged and flew off toward the Gulf. When Gini asked how my morning went, I naturally replied (major apologies for this…..)
“I took a Tern for the wurst.”
Take care on those runs!
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Thank you Wally! We have a Tern or two here in the Midwest, but nothing like the multitude we get to observe when down on our migration to Texas each year. You needed a “rimshot” sound with your absolutely clever play on words – what I want to know is how Gini reacted to your creativity – curious because sometimes us men are just not appreciated by our better halves hehehe. I was going to try and respond with an equally eloquent pun but then gave up as I couldn’t beat that perfection. Clearly I need to add that sausage technique the next time I need to get a Tern to pose for me – will add it to our secret Intrigued Photographer’s handbook. Hope all is well down there and both your recoveries are still going well.
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I believe we flew around your tornadoes and cold on the way to Germany. Beautiful photos. I’m hoping to photograph the European Green Woodpecker and the Black Woodpecker while I’m here.
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Hopefully you made it through that without issues – Linda throws up at any amount of turbulence on a plane so that would NOT have been a good flight for her. I’ve never seen either of those two WPs so be sure and share on your blog if you are able to tin those. Assuming you are heading over there to see your daughter – did Jake get to go?
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The flight was smooth for the most part. There were some points of feeling a few moments of weightlessness from the turbulence. I loved it, but I can see if one gets motion sickness, that would make one puke.
I’ve done a couple of posts since I got here. Thanks, Brian.
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