Responding to your Arctic Terns questions/comments...

Ed Schulz asks: <Are you referring to Arctic Terns or Caspian Terns? I was
under the impression that the main colony (ternery? heh,heh...) was Caspian
Terns with only a couple pair of Arctic Terns nesting here. >

My query was in specific reference to the Arctics. The several thousand
Caspians which nested only two years ago on the Navy base have almost all
moved on (where?) since construction at the base eliminated their nesting
turf. Only a handful remain in the area and none have been seen nesting.

Three pair of Arctics have nested at Everett in recent years, though
apparently not this year.

Michael Patrick says: <I've learned a very small bit about the breeding
behavior of the northern spotted owl, which is of course entirely unrelated to
a tern. However, it is apparently typical for them to not nest unless
conditions are optimal. These conditions usually being adequate prey base,
which in the case of SPOW is several years of good rain to bring up the
population of flying squirrels. Perhaps the tern's behavior is related to the
impact of oceanic conditions on their favorite prey (i.e. I've heard a rumor
of another El Nin~o, that's supposed to be a ~ on top of the second "n",
year...).>

All I can say is that nesting conditions for the Everett Arctic colony have
never been optimal as to the ground conditions -- disturbances from people,
dogs, people, fireworks, people, construction, people, etc. I cant speak to
the availability of prey, except to note that the one time this year I saw the
birds at the 13th street parking lot, two were carrying fish to court the
third.

------------------------------------------------
Fred Bird
fredbird at halcyon.com
1249 NE 92nd Street Snohomish County Council staff
Seattle, Washington 98115 206-388-3494
206-526-5671