David, Gary, and all,

Spotty and local might be good terms to describe southbound Common Tern
migration through Puget Sound every year. At least that has been my
experience over the past few years. This season, from roughly the first
of August through the middle of September, was actually quite good for
Common Terns along the east side of Bainbridge Island. I had multiple
counts of 40 + on various days at different spots. In some previous
years I can recall only finding a few and then they just may have been
roosting on floating logs. Boat outings during this time of year has
convinced me that they can be quite abundant in spots where there is
obvious bait activity and absent or just transient in other areas. One
thing that has held true is that when I find Common Terns in decent
numbers feeding, Parasitic Jaegers are amongst them giving chase.
Incidentally, Common Tern numbers were down this year at Point no Point
too according to Vic Nelson.

My recent experience with juvenile Bonaparte's Gulls also seems to
differ from what was observed recently in Tacoma. Fair numbers of bonies
have been in the Kingston and Point no Point areas and I'm finding about
10% juveniles in the mix. Not sure, but that seems to be consistent with
what I normally find at this time of year. I have seen some imm. Mew
Gulls recently but I have not paid close attention to numbers.

I'm curious to see what new rarity gets found down in Hoquiam! Way to
get the ball rolling, Doug and Bob!

Cheers and good birding,

Brad Waggoner
Bainbridge Island
mailto:wagtail at sounddsl.com