Hi Tweets,

About five minutes ago (5 PM), I looked out my window, saw a few (5)
Ring-billed Gulls mooching around way up high over the neighborhood doing
some dispirited hawking of nuptial ants/termites beginning to emerge,
noticed one had a sort of odd look to it, got the bins out, and saw my
first-ever fly-catching Caspian Tern.

Not graceful at it, the tern hawked for about 45 sec. that I saw, made about
8 or 9 awkward lunges after insects, in company with the Ring-billed Gulls.
The gulls moved on to the southeast, the tern made three powered-flight
circles for even more altitude, and moved off south-by-southwest.

Though large numbers of gulls, sometimes in the hundreds, mostly
Ring-billeds, a score or two Bonaparte's, a few Californias, a few Mews,
some lumbering Glaucous-wingeds, even the odd juv Franklin's, and sometimes
Northwestern Crows--hawking nuptial flights of ants and termites are a
common sight over the western part of the Kitsilano district of Vancouver BC
on hot mid-summer afternoons, this is the first time I've ever seen a
Caspian Tern join the feeding melee.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
michael_price at mindlink.bc.ca