It’s early August, which means that shorebird migration is hitting the higher gears and songbirds are already dropping the first hints about their southbound migration. But once again, the world’s friendliest rare bird has dominated the regional bird news. Because that ultra rare, and ultra interactive Bridled Tern I spoke about two weeks back, the tropical visitor who took up a summer residence in Scituate Harbor, just wrapped up a whirlwind tour of the Cape and Islands.
How do I know it’s the same bird? First of all, there are at most two or three Bridled Terns in the entire northeastern US right now, which is a lot since these are tropical birds. Second, this bird readily self identifies with behaviors I’ve never personally seen or heard of in a seabird, namely landing on people and dogs, but also on beach umbrellas, cars, cameras, decks, and driveways. It’s the seabird version of those food conditioned chickadees at the Beech Forest in Provincetown, except we have no idea why this bird obsessively lands on other creatures.
Back on the 26th, local seabird expert/hard core enthusiast Peter Flood arrived around 5AM for one of his all-day vigils way out at Race Point in Provincetown. After five hours of tallying shearwaters, storm-petrels, terns, gulls, shorebirds and the like, plus a couple of humpback whales, he started heading back to civilization. That’s when the Bridled Tern arrived and settled in among the other terns. Peter realized this was probably the Scituate bird when, as he photographed it, it tried to land on his back.
Like any celebrity, this Bridled Tern is photographed where it goes. On that day, a Sunday, it was photographed in its usual haunt of Scituate Harbor in the early morning. Peter saw it land at Race Point, 26 miles ESE of Scituate, at 10:30 – impressive by human standards but a trivial distance for an ocean wandering seabird. It was not seen again in Scituate.
From the Race it must have continued down the backside and around the horn, because two days later, the 28th, a Bridled Tern made a flyby along the south shore of Nantucket. By 6:30 the next morning the celebrity tern was back in friendly mode - it was found sitting in a yard near Aquinnah at the west end of Martha’s Vineyard. There it betrayed its identity when it swooped around the dog - seemingly playing with dogs is one of this birds most endearing traits. Later it was seen by a couple of other people nearby, including one ecstatic birder.
On Saturday, August 1st the Bridled Tern reappeared in Plymouth County, where someone photographed it sitting on their deck railing at Gurnet Point, that confusing place at the end of Duxbury Beach that is actually in the town of Plymouth. By yesterday, somewhat predictably, it was back in Scituate.
Who knows why it went on this semi-local walkabout, and, more mysteriously to me, how it didn’t find anywhere worth settling down in here in this seabird paradise. No offense to Scituate, but the Cape and Islands are way better places for a tern to spend some time – we know from studies of marked birds that several species of tern travel here in late summer from all compass directions, especially from Long Island to Canada, to stage and gorge on baitfish before their southbound migration. We’ve had terns from Europe on occasion and others, like Forster’s Terns, that we’re not sure where they come from.
But the Bridled Tern just kept going, like a tourist giving up when the beach lot is full. It’s not a very scientific theory, but I genuinely suspect it headed back to Scituate because it missed one of its dog friends, maybe the Rottweiler it played with there. Whatever the reason, I’m just glad it’s back there, because I’m actually with family this week in Plymouth County, and may finally get to see this famous bird. And isn’t that – me getting to see the bird – the most important thing of all?
