They've been screeching overhead at night here in Bellingham for
a couple of months now. I don't recall hearing them last year, and I
think I would have noticed--their presence is impossible to ignore!
They wake up the whole neighborhood, sounds like twenty but probably more
like four or five passing over several times most nights. I live on the
top floor of a two story building about 1/2 mile from Bellingham Bay.

On Wed, 16 Jul
1997 kraig at wln.com wrote:

>
>
> Maureen warned:
>
> >Heads UP!
> >An "invasion" of Caspian terns, at least 8 in a swirling and noisy
> >foraging party, were seen, at about 8:30PM, just north of the fishing
> >pier near the Beach Park at mid-tide. Earlier in the season a couple
> >of Caspians were seen near the Marina about the first of June, but
> >only for a day or so.
> >
> >Perhaps these current birds are a post-breeding dispersal group;
> >however, all appeared to be mature (typical adult calls and solid
> >black caps.) This is the first season since I started monitoring Des
> >Moines Marina in December of 1994 that I've seen Caspians at our
> >little coast. I'm sure long-time birders around here have probably
> >seen them transiently in this area over the years.
>
> Down here along the Thurston County shore, the invasion has already
> arrived. For the past two years, we've been steadily serenaded with
> the dulcet tones of Caspians squawking overhead, spring, summer, and
> fall, night and day. Where do they come from? Where do they breed?
> These birds are here in numbers by May. I understand that Caspians
> are expanding their range northward; they must be breeding somewhere.
> I've been wondering about the same thing up in Skagit County, where
> flocks of them roost on the Samish Bay tide flats at low tide. I'd
> assumed that these birds came from the ex-colony at the Everett naval
> base.
>
> So, how universal is this expansion?
>
> Eric Kraig
> Olympia, WA
> kraig at wln.com
>
>