Well, the breeding colony may be kaput, but there are still plenty of
terns along the Everett waterfront. After a rainy afternoon today, I
headed to Anthony's Home Port restaurant and vicinity. When we got out of
the car, three Arctics were coming overhead, calling. Three more followed
them before the first three disappeared over the naval yard next door, and
a minute later, five were in sight heading the other direction. The most
we had in sight at one time was six, but it seemed there were more than
that, and over the course of an hour of casual watching, we sighted Arctic
Terns at least 20 times.

Caspian terns were in sight almost constantly, as well, diving for fish on
both sides of Jetty Island, and occasionally carrying fish back from Jetty
Island towards the Naval yard. The Caspians were engaging in what must be
courtship flights - very similar to the Roseate tern courtship I am more
familiar with. It starts with an aerial chase and leads to a brief bout
of gliding on stiffly held wings, the two birds close together (a few
feet), at high speed. Fred Bird and John Flavin reported recently that
the Caspians are not currently nesting locally, so the fish-carrying birds
were probably courting males as well. A few osprey were beating along in
the breeze, too.

It's good to see Arctic Terns - takes me back to east coast days when I
was working in tern colonies. It's too late to start a raising young this
year, I would think, but lets hope they succeed next year.

Chris Hill
Everett, WA
cehill at u.washington.edu