Tern! tern! tern! to springtime

 One of the nice things about starting my day by walking the dogs along the bay shoreline out at the former naval air station is watching the birds out over the water.

 Most of the wintering birds have left for points farther north by now. I didn’t see many loons this year; I saw one last fall and I heard that plaintive ululation out over SF bay a few times. But I saw fewer loons this winter than at any time since I started walking Ernie dog out here back in 2003.

 What I did see was grebes, lots of grebes. I saw one visiting species in particular, enough to verify they were horned grebes in winter plumage. For whatever reason, we had a lot more of them than usual, and this spring for the first time I saw them after molting into summer plumage, too. In the gray light of dawn at first I wasn’t sure—we occasionally get pied-billed grebes, and I thought it might have been a pied-billed. But when he popped up from his breakfasting dive, I could see that feathery yellow crown, and knew it was a horned in his (or her!) summer finery.

Every spring we get terns, too. Not just the little least terns who’ve given us the wildlife refuge, but much larger birds with a scratchy call. I finally stood and watched them for awhile, noting the size, and how the tail is not deeply forked, then studied the field guides a bit.

Terns have been problematic for me in the past. Years ago the Mrs. and I were visiting Balboa Island down in Newport Beach, watching tern gymnastics out over the water, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out if they which species they were.

But looking at the range maps, the size, call, and coloration of these guys, I figured they had to be Caspian terns. Big rangy birds with long necks–a few flicks of the wing and they are moving fast. You really notice it when something like mallards are flapping rapidly along, necks craned, flying with a purpose over the water and treetops, and nearby a tern soars with a quarter the effort and twice the speed.

I’ve enjoyed watching the terns for a month or so now; keep expecting some morning they will be gone, as they don’t usually last late into spring. Perhaps the schools of sardines and herring in the bay are more abundant this year. Even today there was one high overhead, whose call wasn’t the usual scratchy rasp, but higher and more plaintive. Perhaps he was calling for his pals, who’ve already moved on.

The last thing I wanted to mention was watching the Western or Clark’s grebes fish as a unit. It’s quite a flotilla of these guys I see diving and fishing together. One morning I noticed them up ahead,  then they were gone, then they bobbed up one by one again.  My way of telling the species apart is whether the eye is in the dark head patch (Western) or the white on the side of their face (Clark’s), but these guys were too far out to tell. And they’re not holding still, either. I stood still trying to count them, but although they sort of play follow the leader in diving and moving forward, doubtless chasing a school of small fish, the first to pop up were diving again by the time the last surfaced. I counted about 18 or 19 so figured there were about 20 or so in the whole group. Funny to see that many grebes paddling along and then boop-boop-boop! they’re all gone.

I’ve seen cormorants fish this way, although the cormorants were more systematic, fishing in a rolling pattern as they drive the fish forward. Each bird dives at the front of the flock, by the time it surfaces other birds have dived in front of it, so it flies ahead and plunges at the fore again as the cormorants work together to bunch the fish for breakfast.

The grebes were a bit more harum scarum, yet still clearly chasing the fish across the cove. One morning I even saw two grebes in their courtship dance, necks craning up and diving down as they swam side by side – pretty cool.

 That’s it for the terns, grebes, and loons—and I didn’t even get to the ravens, phoebes, swallows, and Canadian geese.

Maybe next time.

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