Artic Tern (Finally!) at PINS, 7/30/26

Yesterday Caley Thomas found an immature Arctic Tern at the Padre Island National Seashore.  She along with Willie Sekula had seen the same bird a few days earlier.  Others also reported it.  OK.  That's enough!  Time to make another try at my Texas nemesis bird.  Arctic Tern used to be a mega rare bird in Texas with just a few reports from isolated western lakes and coastal beaches.  But several were seen along the beach at Padre National Seashore durning July of 2024.  I made a couple of tries and missed, one by just a few minutes.  And maybe a half dozen, both adults and young, have been seen this past month.  Whether it's global warming or just more birders is hard to say

So I took off again yesterday morning and reached the Padre Island National Seashore by 10:30 am.  I was not worried about being early as the birds tend to be out feeding during early hours.  It was time to start searching the tern flocks for a black-naped Sterna with very short legs and a delicate bill.

Just a note on Tern classification.  They all used to be in the genus Sterna but recent molecular genetic studies have caused ornithologists to split the terns into several genera.  Kinda makes sense.  Sterna is made up of the confusing group of mid sized terns that include Forster's, Common, Roseate and Arctic Terns.

There were plenty of Terns to sort through.  Everyone is done breeding and out playing on the beach.  Larger terns included lots of Royal and Sandwich Terns and a few Caspian Terns.

And just a word about leg anatomy.  The visible swelling on a birds leg is not it's "knee".  It's the "heel".  The entire portion of the bird's leg below that swelling is it's foot.  Above the swelling is the bird's tibia.  The "knee' and femur are not visible.  Think about a chicken hind quarter.  The thigh and drum stick join at the knee.  The other end of the drum stick is the that swelling visible in the photos above.  This is helpful to keep in mind as I examine leg length on Sterna gulls.

So what about this guy in a mixed tern flock.  It looks a little short legged.

The problem is "short" is a rtelative term.  Short compared to what?  So my strategy was just to check out and photograph a lot of Sterna terns.  If I missed it in the field maybe I would catch it later while editing photos.  Leg length duly noted but maybe the bill is too heavy.  Hmmm....

Now here's three of them.  Six in the next pic.  There's only one Arctic Tern so these have to be Common Terns.

Hundreds of Black Terns served as a distracton.

What about this one?  Seems pretty short legged and small billed.  Leg length can also be affected by how fluffed up the bird is and is it partially squatting?

I got closer and now the legs seemed a little longer.  Then it stretched and I think there's too much black in the primaries.  Maybe the carpal bar is too bold.

A Black Skimmer skimmed by.  I moved on.

Then...  really short legs, cute round head and dainty thin bill....  This might be it!  I moved closer.

As Troy Hibbetts put it "The legs are almost comically short."  It walked away a little and "waddled" might better describe the motion.  Arctic Tern!

It flew and I got some decent photos showing thedark tipped primary flight feathers and the pale secondaries.

This poor little Arctic Tern is less than half way along its fall migration route from the Arctic to the Antarctic.  Including the return that's nearly a 25,000 mile annual trip.  Resting with it's eyes closed, it may not be feeling well.  Many of out lost vagrant birds are stressed.

Arctic Tern is species #612 on my Texas eBird list.  Glad I was finally able to tick that one!  It was not a lifer as I saw a few with the Kevin and Barry Zimmer on the 1981 Western Field Ornithologists pelagic trip out of San Diego.  So it had been a while.