My First Arctic Tern, In the Desert Of Course

Before leaving for the Davis Mountains this summer to begin my thesis work, one of the last things my wife said to me, (besides I love you, thankfully) was, “Do you want your scope?”.

I had already thought of this. Did I want to take an expensive, big clunky telescope for birds to mountains surrounded by desert. The scope comes in most handy at lakes or beaches — anywhere the distances involved are beyond the reach of binoculars.

No, I replied. Why would I need a scope?

To look at Arctic Terns in the desert of course.

Yesterday the report come through. At Lake Balmorhea an Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) had been seen. Normally, Balmorhea is about a seven day drive out of the way from most places in Texas. In other words, it’s difficult to just hop in the car and go. But as luck would have it, it’s only an hour drive from where I’m at now. So yesterday afternoon after collecting data for my thesis, I hopped in the car and went.

Upon arriving, I immediately saw the bird. My initial pictures were less than exciting. The camera I have is a great general purpose digital camera, with nice macro capabilities, but it’s simply not useful in getting good pictures of birds, as its zoom lens is the equivalent of a 280mm lens. (600 to 800mm is more the norm for wildlife photography).

However, upon moving to a section of the lake that the bird seemed to be favoring, I spotted him (or her) sitting on a rock near the lake’s shore. I sat down on my butt and inched forward, closer and closer. I developed a system — Jay’s system of least movement, I’ll call it — whereby I held the camera in my left hand, pushed my body up off my right hand, and then used my legs to pull myself forward. I would then reach my legs out and repeat. Kind of like walking towards the bird, except using your butt in place of your left arm.

Anyway, I was able to get within 30 feet of the bird. Had I kept scooting forward, I would have been sitting in mud and shortly after the lake itself.

One of the most spectacular facts about Arctic Tern is that is has the longest migration of any animal on the planet. It migrates from the north pole to the south pole and back each year — about 22,000 miles annually. Because of it’s migration route, I’ve heard it said that the Arctic Tern spends something like eight months out of the year in complete sunlight.

Now terns of this type all look fairly similar. Arctic Tern is most similar to Common Tern, and it takes a little knowledge to separate them.

Arctic terns are small headed and small billed, with short legs. They have all red bills (Common’s have black in the tip). Their wings show translucent primaries (flight feathers) and white in the secondaries (the feathers along the trailing edge of the wing) compared with Common Terns that lack this translucence and are gray in the secondaries. The underside edge of their primaries also shows reduced black compared with Common Tern. When sitting, their tail usually extends past the tips of their wings (in Common it usually doesn’t).

And for those interested, the full gallery has additional pictures.