The Final Roseate Tern Twitch: Bird or Bust!
Long Beach, NY
Wednesday 31 May 2023
67 °F
SATURDAY, MAY 13:
One nemesis of mine in New York state has been the Roseate Tern as every may I head out to Nickerson Beach in search of this rare, Common Tern lookalike. Would I fair differently today? Read on to find out!
Larids were definitely in abundance in the form of COMMON TERNS (bottom) and BLACK SKIMMERS (top):
They allowed for relatively close-up views when they settled onto the beach, letting me pick through their massive flocks for any Roseate Terns:
Of course, other birds were present too, like SANDERLING:
And LAUGHING GULL:
And OSPREY:
But it was back to picking through the terns in search of the “needle in a haystack!”
Unfortunately, despite over 90 minutes of this thorough searching, my sore luck with this species held true and I never was able to discover the presence of this threatened, small, pale tern among its Common cousins. Well — this proves there is always another adventure waiting out there!
Bird-of-the-day to all the Common Terns as they deserve more love for always showing up and putting on a show, with runner-up to the fabulous Black Skimmers.
Happy birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1150 Species
