[obol] Details on 9/3 ELEGANT TERNS Lane Co.

[Karl Fairchild]

Hi All,

Just wanted to follow up on my sighting of the ELEGANT TERN flock near 
the mouth of the Siuslaw River yesterday.  Ulo Kiigemagi and I had just 
finished lunch at the South Jetty crabbing pier and I was casually 
scanning some gulls over the river hoping to change one into a tern.  
One of the birds (a leader of the flock) caught my interest and soon 
scanned to the left where I saw about 20-30 birds in a fairly tight 
flock toward the far side of the river.  They were clearly terns and 
clearly smaller than Caspian, which immediately got my attention.  I 
followed the birds in my spotting scope as the flock flew upriver 
300-400 meters and wheeled around several times.  At this point all I 
could make out was that they were terns, white overall, and smaller than 
Caspian but still seemed larger than the Arctic Terns I'd seen on the 
Shorebird Festival pelagic two days before.  Their flight seemed rather 
gull-like.  The flock returned downriver and I raced out to the end of 
the crab dock as the flock drew even with me, still most of the way 
across the river and fairly high.  As I reached the end of the dock, the 
birds began circling and diving, apparently catching bait fish just 
outside the Shelter Cove rock line.  As I watched, I noted black caps on 
most birds, white bodies overall, and no deep forking in the tail.  I 
also noticed orange beaks that seemed long but not particularly massive 
as I'm used to in Caspians, but definitely larger than the dainty ones I 
observed on the Arctic Terns on the pelagic.  I also got an overall 
impression that the birds seemed to have more mass in front of the wings 
than behind, something I've seen before on Caspians but not on Arctic.  
Sizewise, the birds were only slightly smaller than the California and 
Ring-billed Gulls feeding with them.  I only noted a small amount of 
black in the trailing edge of the primaries.  I did notice forking in 
the tail on several of these birds as the dove to feed.  The flock 
seemed relatively pure, and appeared to contain mostly adults, though I 
saw one bird that looked to be either a juvenile or a basic plumaged 
adult.  After several minutes of observation, still at a good distance, 
Ulo and I were fairly satisfied with the identification but wanted 
better looks.  We then drove around to Shelter Cove in an attempt to get 
better looks at this (for me) life bird.  We found them wheeling fairly 
high overhead, and I was able to get several more brief looks, but the 
light was against us.  The distance was still rather great, and the 
birds left in the instant I was fumbling with the scope.  I did not see 
which direction the flock flew, and I was unable to relocate the birds, 
despite well over an hour of waiting and checking up and down the 
river.  Eventually we left without getting the excellent looks one 
craves for life birds.  Does anyone have any feedback on species that I 
failed to consider or other insights (i.e. water current temperatures, 
etc?).  Feel free to reply either online or in person.

Thanks in advance for any info and Good Birding!

Karl

Karl Fairchild
Philomath, OR