Tern Formation

Tern Formation
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

On our recent trip to Enders Island, we were treated to a marvelous display of a pair of Common Terns flying in formation as they hunted for schools of fish near the surface. The terns would hunt and swoop over the fish about 60-70 meters out into the sound, then race back to the rocks along the island. They repeated this at least four times before I noticed the juvenile sitting on a rock further down the island calling to the two adults. The lead adult had a small clupeoid fish in its beak and the trailing tern would not let the lead bird get clear. Eventually it did get clear long enough to and next to the juvenile and transfer the fish. The adult was airborne again in probably 5 seconds.

Terns are considered threatened in many states, including Connecticut and Rhode Island where the colony nesting sites are protected.

These two were hitting the water going after herring or some other clupeoid fish that were breaking the surface to escape submerged predators. Fish such as herring and sand lance make up the majority of the terns diet. They terns will also eat crustaceans, polychaetes and insects though that is less common.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Aves
Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Laridae
Genus: Sterna
Species: Sterna hirundo

Update:
I should clarify that the common tern is not considered threatened on a national basis. Some states list them as threatened and there have been significant local declines in many areas – possibly tied to waterfront development trends and beach usage patterns. The IUCN considers them as Least Concern with a global population of 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 individuals globally (and they are truly a global species!)

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This was written by Eric. Posted on Saturday, August 23, 2008, at 9:56 am. Filed under Photography, Wildlife. Tagged aves, bird, Enders_Island, lifephotomeme, Sterna hirundo. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Post a comment or leave a trackback.

4 Comments

kate wrote:

I had no idea that the common tern was a threatened species. I guess seeing them so often growing up I just kinda took them for granted

… which, I guess, is the entire problem in a nutshell: People tend to take animals for granted.

Saturday, August 23, 2008 at 11:05 am | Permalink
kate wrote:

hmmm… never noticed my link was wrong on this blog. I’ve got it fixed now

Saturday, August 23, 2008 at 11:06 am | Permalink
Sam W. Heads wrote:

Hi Eric: splendid shot… most impressive photography!

Saturday, August 23, 2008 at 12:40 pm | Permalink
Brine Queen wrote:

Great shot! So clear.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 8:48 pm | Permalink