Yesterday evening, I went back out to the beach by kayak, parked it at the
corner of Mason and Bay Avenues, and counted terns moving southward until dusk.
Together with the morning and midafternoon birds, I estimate
(conservatively) the following numbers; the only bird that moved northward in
the group was
the only tropical tern seen, the Bridled, remarkably. All the rest were
flying southward, and Tom Saunders also counted ca. 400 white terns and Black
Terns
at Bay Creek, just on the other side of Cape Charles harbor.
Black Tern 95+ (a very high count for Virginia in recent years; still lower
than the 125 counted in Williamsburg!!)
Royal Tern 288
Caspian Tern 21
Sandwich Tern 130
Common Tern 685
Arctic Tern 2 (adults); one seen by Jethro Runco and party
Forster's Tern 380
Least Tern 11
Bridled Tern 1 [ad. or subad.; 3 more in the morning on Seaside Road]
Black Skimmer 28
That's about 1613 terns, plus the skimmers; and these numbers assume that all
the storm-roost birds of the morning were counted in the afternoon, which was
probably not the case (the roosts broke up by noon, and the terns were mostly
tallied in the afternoon/evening). It may be the case that Tom Saunders'
terns did not represent duplication, but there's no way to be certain.
This storm must have displaced many thousands of terns. Fascinating that
the western Bay seems to do better for Sooty Terns, while the Eastern Shore/
Bay
mouth has better luck with Bridled, which seems to be displaced inland almost
never.
Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA
