Island Beach SP 7/27--Royal Tern

Three Royal Terns (two adult, one juvenile) with Great Black-backed Gulls and Laughing Gulls

I finally found the birds with the bad haircuts. I've been walking beaches all month (as well as scanning sand bars wherever I found them) looking for Royal Terns and today, just where I would expect them to be (but then, all month I've "expected" them to be there--near the inlet at the southern tip of Island Beach SP), I saw three mixed in with a flock of Great Black-backed Gulls and Laughing Gulls. Up 'til then it had been along walk through a haze coming off the ocean without much to see except a lot of Sanderlings:

Sanderlings

Sanderlings are always entertaining to watch, little wind-up toys running along the edge of the surf, but after the first few hundred they do get a little old. I found 1 Piping Plover (which I pointed out to a fellow walker of the beach who was very unimpressed) and 3 American Oystercatchers.

And really, that was about it for my 1 1/2 miles of of walking except for the 5 Brown Pelicans that flew over the beach and out to the ocean just as I was approaching the dune crossing back to the parking lot.

I took a walk on the Spizzle Creek trail which, despite my trepidation, was virtually mosquito and fly free. Or else the repellent I was using was actually effective. Again, nothing there that was new although I did find one Little Blue Heron and one Tricolored Heron and scoped a Peregrine Falcon on the hacking tower on one of the sedge islands.

My two lists
South Beach to Inlet
14 species
Brown Pelican 5
Osprey 2
American Oystercatcher 3
Piping Plover 1
Sanderling 400
Laughing Gull 25
Herring Gull 50
Great Black-backed Gull 25 most loafing near jetty
Common Tern 150
Royal Tern 3
Mourning Dove 1
Barn Swallow 1
Song Sparrow 2
House Finch 1 back of inlet
Spizzle Creek
23 species
Great Egret 1
Little Blue Heron 1
Tricolored Heron 1
Glossy Ibis 10
Osprey 14
Laughing Gull 5
Herring Gull 5
Great Black-backed Gull 3
Forster's Tern 1
Northern Flicker 1
Peregrine Falcon 1
Eastern Kingbird 1
Tree Swallow 25
Barn Swallow 10
Marsh Wren 1 Heard
Gray Catbird 5
Northern Mockingbird 2
European Starling 15
Common Yellowthroat 5
Yellow Warbler 1
Song Sparrow 2
Eastern Towhee 1
Boat-tailed Grackle 10