Forster’s Terns
Late in the afternoon on a breezy day that had been mostly sunny, our last day on Kiawah, a part of the beach was shrouded in fog. The tide was high, and beginning to turn as I stepped off the boardwalk and headed east, into a sharp, cool wind. Forster’s Terns hovered, flashed white in the fog, and plunged into the water. Many Forster’s Terns. They were lined up, widely spaced, like airplanes waiting to land, just beyond the breaking waves, all along the edge of the surf where it was still deep enough for fish – and beyond that line was another and another – as far as I could see, more terns than I’ve ever seen at one time before. And although they were all in constant, flurried motion, altogether they formed an image, a whole, that seemed suspended in time. Facing into the wind, they hovered and plunged, over and over, seeming to keep a certain equal, constant amount of space among them. My whole view of the ocean was a foggy, mystical gray, dotted with the glistening white wings of terns over choppy waves.
As I walked, the fog lifted or maybe it drifted back down the beach, blown away by the wind, leaving sunshine and a big open blue sky again, and it became even more clear how very many terns there were, mostly Forster’s, beginning with a line along the edge of the waves, and more and more further out. I could easily count three dozen or more at a time – but have no estimate of how many there might have been in all.
A Forster’s Tern in flight is crisp, quick, very animated. Although I trust the Sibley Guide to Birds and its description that they are less graceful than Common Terns, I don’t have them both to compare – and in the winter months here, the Forster’s is, for me, a familiar delight. Its pale gray upper wings are edged with white that gleams and looks silvery. Like all terns, they are graceful flyers, with slender, pointed wings and long, trailing, deeply forked white-edged tails.
Several Laughing Gulls came flying together, sailing fast and low over the waves, almost skimming the water, flying toward the east. They were followed by another group of Laughing Gulls and another and another, maybe six, seven or eight together each time. A few Double-crested Cormorants swam in the water among the fishing terns, riding the swells of the waves, and disappearing under the surface when they dived. A scattering of Ring-billed Gulls and larger Herring Gulls stood on the sand. Sanderlings scurried along the rippled edge of the waves, and one small group of Sanderlings stood still, some preening, some resting on one leg – it seemed unusual to see the busy little sandpipers at rest. Four Semipalmated Plovers scurried around in the sand further away from the water.
I came to a group of a dozen or more Forster’s Terns standing on the beach, on the sand just at the edge of the tide, with the water sometimes rippling up over their feet and making them shift a little. They seemed to be gathering as the tide went out. More flew in as I watched, one or two at a time and the group gradually got larger. They stood facing into the wind, toward the east. Some preened. In spring plumage, Forster’s are medium-sized terns, mostly white with black caps, short orange legs and pointed orange bills with black tips. These terns were a mixture. A few still showed the black mask of winter plumage, though most had full or partial caps – some had a sort of speckled black nape. Some had orange and black bills, while others still looked all winter-black.
I watched them for several minutes as more and more flew in and settled into place among the group, and meanwhile, offshore, many other Forster’s Terns continued to sparkle as they hovered and plunged into the water.
Just before leaving, I took one last look at the terns standing on the beach, scanning my binoculars slowly over them – and came to four birds that looked huge among the others. Somehow I had missed their arrival. Four Royal Terns stood there, each with a long, thick golden orange bill, full jet-black cap that crests toward the back, snow-white plumage and short black legs. They looked like royalty indeed, big and solid and strong, the Forster’s suddenly diminutive in appearance around them.