Gull-billed Terns in Burlco

Gull-billed Terns on Union Pond

Yesterday, while I was eating lunch, one of my Burlco buddies texted me that there were Gull-billed Terns at Whitesbog. Gull-billed Terns aren't rare, but they are unusual in Burlington County. Normally, they show up for a few days in August if the bogs have been drawn down, feasting on frogs, but, like a lot of species nowadays, they're early. The bogs aren't going to be drawn down this year for various reasons, but Union Pond is losing water on its own accord, and that's where 4 terns were when I got over there, sitting on a grassy mud patch in the center of the pond. There had also been a Bonaparte's Gull, which is rare in the county this time of year, but it had left before I arrived. 

This morning, I went to Reeve's Bogs and I was surprised to find two Gull-billed Terns hunting the front impoundment. I was pretty certain they were patch birds for me, but I was happy to find out that they were the first Gull-billed Terns listed at Reeve's, bringing its total up to 167 species. I went over to Whitesbog afterwards and found two of the four Gull-bills still on the same grassy spot in the middle of Union Pond. So, they're around. 

My favorite story about them is from my informant who has been birding Whitesbog and Reeve's for more than 50 years. Back before eBird, or social media, or even telephone hotlines, he used to send in his bird sightings by mail to a regional reviewer. I think he did it quarterly. Every summer he would send in reports of Gull-billed Terns at Whitesbog, and every time his reports would be ignored, because everyone knew that Gull-billed Terns were along the coast and were not to be found in the middle of the Pine Barrens. This went on for years until someone else sent in a report of Gull-billed Terns in Burlco and the regional reviewer got curious and ventured out to Whitesbog. Sure enough, Gull-billed Terns. And then he told my informant the surprising news, which wasn't, of course, very surprising to him. "I've been telling you for ten years, but you didn't believe me." It isn't a wonder that my informant is indifferent to eBird or any other form of public listing. I'm fortunate he tells me when he finds an interesting species. (Don't even get some of the Burlco guys started on the Brown Pelican he once found and didn't tell anyone about)

The moral of this story is: Birds have wings.