Anita’s Blog – Tern, Tern, Tern
- jjvanm
- May 10
- 6 min read
Updated: May 11
Like a fun ride at a water park, terns plunge-dive – not for the thrill but to catch fish, their primary diet.
I was first introduced to a pair of royal terns on the beach at Port Isabel’s Isla Blanca Park on the last day of the 2023 City Nature Challenge (above photo). I thought, how regal, when I looked at the enlarged photo on my computer monitor while comparing it to the iNaturalist identification. They are beautifully colorful birds, in a surrealistically artful way: the black and white are pure, the gray, a perfect shade of gray; the beak startlingly vibrant tomato orange.
I photographed a royal tern in flight quite by chance the following March, high in the sky at a South Padre Island beach, while I was photographing laughing gulls for a story.
A month later, at Boca Chica Beach during the 2024 City Nature Challenge, I managed another photo of a royal tern in flight, looking much like the silhouette of a rare luxury private jet.
That same year in Arturo Galvan Coastal Park, at 1801 2nd Street, in Port Isabel, I gained a lucky shot of a smaller tern, striding on the sand. It later identified as a least tern. I was thrilled – a second species.
Arturo Galvan Coastal Park, in Port Isabel, is a city park. It has no admission fee and nearly 2,000 feet of shoreline along the Laguna Madre Bay. There is a small parking lot, restrooms and a shaded picnic area. There are numerous beach plants to photograph and include in the City Nature Challenge as well as occasional shells amongst the rocky beach.
I had bird success again during the 2025 City Nature Challenge at the small coastal park, adding to my species count a lovely willet, laughing gulls, ruddy turnstones, spotted sandpipers, brown pelicans and even a house sparrow perched on a sign. And both royal and least terns turned up again, too.
Quicker than my camera maneuverability expertise, a least tern repeatedly dived straight down into the shallow water, continuing along the shore behind the line of boulders; it progressed as if driving rivets along the length of an airplane wing.
This year, I added a third tern species to my birding list. I was sitting on the patio just after sunrise, watching the sky over a resaca north of Los Fresnos. I photographed a pair of terns that were later identified as Caspian terns. That was thrilling, not only because they were another species of tern, but because I had captured fairly clear photos, crediting that to my camera panning prowess, until I read in AllAboutBirds.org that they fly slowly above the water.
Near-perfect photos aside, terns are beautiful to watch.
Terns are seabirds. They are found on all continents except Antarctica. They are normally found near the sea, and inland around rivers and wetlands – in this part of the country, over resacas, too.
Terns are not gulls, although they don’t mind hanging out with them at the seashore. It’s easier to tell a tern from a gull in the air. In flight, terns have sharply angular tails and wings; gulls’ wings are more rounded. Terns are slenderer than gulls, their bodies more streamlined. Terns have longer, narrow wings, long bills, relatively short legs and forked tails.
The sexes are identical in appearance. And of course, they have breeding and non-breeding plumage that makes it confusing for those of us who don’t claim to be professional birders.
Gulls are opportunistic feeders; terns are not. Terns plunge dive, where they quickly plunge into the water to grasp smallish fish near the surface. Many times, they will hover over water before the dive and the dive is without warning and so swift, and the catch and return to aerial surveillance while swallowing the fish is lightning quick. It’s more stunning to watch than to try to photograph in still shot camera mode.
Terns are social birds. They often roost and migrate in groups, sometimes with other species. While they nest in colonies during the breeding season, they may also stay in groups when not breeding, especially during migration.
A group of terns is commonly referred to as a colony; flock, committee, pack and kettle can be used, depending on the specific context. As they should be, a group of Royal terns is known as a highness of terns.
Royal Tern, according to “All About Birds” is a sleek seabird of warm saltwater coasts. They eat mostly two- to four-inch small fish and shrimp. They capture by flying 20-30 feet above the water and plunge-dive to seize prey in the bill – normally over shallow water. They eat many types of small, surface-schooling fish.
Royal tern wingspan is 42 to 44 inches. They have long pointed wings, long forked tail and a bright orange bill. Nonbreeding have a narrow, often shaggy band at the back of the head. They are year-round residents along the Texas coast. Royal terns mate for life.
Caspian Tern is the world’s largest tern with a wingspan of 50 to 57 inches and larger than many gulls. They are common residents along the Texas coast. Adults have black legs and a long thick red-orange bill with a small black tip. In flight, a shallow fork, less forked than other terns and wingtips are black on the underside.
All About Birds: Caspian Terns prey mostly on fish, supplementing their diet with crustaceans such as crayfish and occasionally large insects. To locate prey, they fly above water, between 10 and 100 feet high, and scan the water with bill pointed downward. They usually plunge underwater but sometimes catch fish without submerging. They usually consume fish in flight quickly after capture, unless the prey item is intended for the mate or chick.
Caspian Terns are kleptoparasites (pirates) at times, chasing other terns species and forcing them to give up their catch. On rare occasions, they scavenge invertebrates or dead fish on beaches, and some have eaten small mammals, birds, eggs, salamanders, mussels, snails, crayfish, flies, and beetles. The Caspian Tern got its name because early ornithologists associated it with the Caspian Sea.
Sources: All About Birds.org, Wikipedia, Audubon.org
Least Tern is the smallest tern, It weighs in at about the same size as a mockingbird, according to All About Birds. They have a wingspan 18.9 to 20.9 inches. They are migratory. Breeding adults are pale gray and white. They have a black cap, white forehead and yellow bill. Non-breeding least terns have a dark bill, smudgy grayish crown and may show a dark bar at the bend of the wing. Least terns dart over waterways, usually close to shore, diving for fish or other small prey. They frequent rivers, bays, and ocean coastlines.
Least terns hover more than most terns. They usually hover before plunging into water for tiny prey.
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My blog title, “Tern, Tern, Tern” is a play on words of the Pete Seeger song released in 1962 by the folk group the Limeliters, as “To Everything There is a Season,” and later by American folk-rock group, The Byrds as “Turn! Turn! Turn!” when it became an international hit. The lyrics are taken almost verbatim from the first eight verses of the Biblical Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, a book written by King Solomon.
A changing or turning world in which there is a time and place for everything is an interpretation of the Biblical text. Academically, the context is proposed to suggest a natural ebb and flow of ideas and perspectives. Seeger’s song (which he composed in 1959) is thought to be a plea for world peace with his closing line, ". . . a time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.”
Ok, yes, it was a protest song – a call for transition, during a time when it was great to be a teenager – of course, when isn’t, right?
Sources: Rock Reflections.com, Wikipedia, Informationr.net, all poetry.com
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