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Roseate Tern at Cape Hatteras Point




Dear CarolinaBirders,

This morning (8/6/00) at 6:45 AM  I saw a Roseate Tern at Cape Hatteras,
near Cape Point. Since this is a lifer for me, and thus I am
unexperienced with the species,  I will include a description, and any
feedback is welcome.

I spotted a lone midsize tern sitting with Least Terns within the posted
Tern colony maybe 40 yards inside the ropes. When I focused the scope on
it at 40-50x it was the only bird in the field. The lighting was
perfect, the sun was behind my back. This tern had a full black cap, at
the base of the bill there were a few tiny white feathers on the front,
inside the cap. The bill was all black, (NO red at the base), and was
quite slender. The underparts were pure white with a faint pinkish tinge
on the breast (I thought firs that maybe the dawning sun is playing with
me, however, other parts did not look pinkish. The mantle was light gray
(with binos I could compare it only to the Least Terns, and it appeared
lighter than that), the outermost primaries looked black on the folded
wing. The tail was distinctively longer than the wings, however, I could
not see its full lengh properly, because the bird was standing not
completely sideways, but at a degree facing towards me. The legs were
pinkish red.
Here comes the sad part. I was handling my field guide, and looking at
the the bird at the same time, when a big gull, or a Royal Tern flying
low above flushed them. By the time I realized this, threw away the
book, lifted my binos, and started looking for the bird, she was gone. I
tried to look for among the swirling Least Terns, which finally returned
to the same spot, but the Roseate Tern was gone for good. Probably flew
directly out to the ocean.
I was waiting there for quite some time, than walked around the rope to
south then west to see up close a group of terns that were loafing near
a little pond there. Most of them were Common Terns, with a few
Forster's Terns, Sandwhich Terns, and Royals. Nothing looked like the
one before. There was also a Piping Plover hanging around there. From
that point I did see a very long-tailed tern flying towards the ocean,
but at a distance and only a silhouette- directly against the sun. That
is it. On the way out I met some birders and told about it, and they
encouraged me to post the sighting.

On Saturday I took a pelagic trip with Brian Patteson on the Miss
Hatteras. It was a great experience, we had a Manx Shearwater, and the
"usual suspects". I cannot really say that having 10 life birds that
day. Also on Saturday, in the evening, at the Cape Hatteras lighthouse I
saw a Eurasian Collared Dove. It was a fly by, but I am sure in that ID
since I have been seeing those birds in Hungary every day in the past 20
years.

Another note, as others reported, the impoundments on Pea Island, and
Bodie are full with water, no shorebirds were present. Taking the
suggestion of John Fussel"s book, Friday evening (08/04) I waded out to
the marshes, what he describes as "salt flats" on North Pea Island.
There was plenty of good habitat there, and plenty of birds. Nice
assortment of waders, 3 egrets, glossy-, white ibis, yellow-crowned
night heron, etc, and shorebirds. For me the most interesting was a
relatively large (50+) flock of Stilt Sandpipers, some of them were in
still full breeding plumage, - not only it was a lifer, but a beautiful
bird indeed.

Forgive me for the length of this posting

good birding

Ferenc

Ferenc Domoki
fdomoki@wfubmc.edu
Winston-Salem, NC