Arctic Tern Visiting Holyoke Dam

Most small songbirds mature quickly. Once fledged from the nest, they follow their parents around for a short while begging food. Sometimes the female begins a second clutch of eggs while the male continues to look after the first brood. Eventually the young are left to fend for themselves, and many are unsuccessful. They must learn to find food and avoid becoming food in short order, and many also need to master a long harrowing migration to a warmer locale and a return trip to the hatching home.

Sometimes the first brood helps to feed the second set of fledglings, but most wait until the following spring to try parenting. The first-year bird must then learn how to select a nest site and attract or choose a mate. A daunting task also for young people, who often put off settling down in favor of travel or adventure.

For some bird species the maturing process is relatively lengthy, and some embark on what amounts to a grand tour. For example, seabirds are great wanderers, especially a family of seabirds known as terns. This is a large family of fancy flyers, perhaps more graceful than any other group of birds. They vary greatly in size, but all share the delicate proportions that belie a hidden power and endurance.

Usually we find terns on the coast, and in southern New England there are common, least and roseate tern colonies wherever sandy beaches, bars and islands are available. These colonies are not thriving, but they are at least holding on despite competition from large aggressive gulls and bullying beachgoers.

A visit to a nearby place called Sandy Point at the mouth of New Haven harbor will give you close looks at common and least terns. If they are not sitting on the nest scrape, they are resting in small groups on the water's edge or flying by just off the beach searching for fish. Seeing one, they will dive into the water and pluck it out to eat or bring to their young. You will enjoy watching this jaunty, noisy white bird with the black cap.

Later in the fall birds hatched this spring will fly with the adults to wintering grounds in South America, but they will not come back at all the following spring. Before attaining the plumage and instinct to breed, they will spend a year loafing on foreign beaches, surfing the waters and soaking up the sun. What youth wouldn't enjoy such a dream life?

One species of tern has evolved a truly extraordinary migration pattern. It nests on offshore islands from Maine to the very high Arctic, then travels east across the ocean to Europe, then south along the African coast to the shores of Antarctica. No other species of bird migrates so far. See what I meant about endurance and power? That describes the Arctic tern.

The first year Arctic terns seem to leisurely move north in stages. Some years they are found by the hundreds in June and July on the New England coast. They almost always migrate offshore, but very occasionally a few will be found inland during or after storms.

On June 17 a rainstorm went through New England and the next day a birder found a single Arctic tern on the Connecticut River in Holyoke. It lacked the complete black cap of an adult. This bird had probably been born a year ago in North America, visited four other continents, crossed oceans and gulfs, and fished and flew on innumerable beaches and bays. Now it sat on a dead branch at the edge of the "long tidal river" and patrolled the waters above the Holyoke dam.

It is still there as I write this, and many birders in western Massachusetts have now visited this spot and marveled at this once in a lifetime sight. The bird sits on its branch and preens contentedly for up to an hour, then spreads its long, pointed wings and embarks on a short fishing excursion over clear river waters. It seems like a winged apparition, with its wings a pale ghostly gray and its body a bright white. Only the black on the back of its head relieves this mystical impression.

For this young tern it was just another exotic stop on its grand tour of the world.