[Tweeters] Caspian Terns in the Seattle area

[Odette B. James]

I am in a retirement community with an excellent view of the delta of the
Cedar River.  There are Caspian Terns fishing there every day at present.
Never in very large numbers - usually only a few, but on some days as many
as fifteen.  Sometimes they take a time out and sit on the stranded logs on
the delta.  It does look like, when they leave, they head west over the lake
water.  In fact, there are two out there fishing now as I write this.  There
were more last year, but they never brought any young birds to the delta at
the end of the summer, I presume because they died in the horrendous brief
heat wave we had last summer (which might suggest that the nests were indeed
on a rooftop so the young birds could not get to a cooler location).  In
2021, at the end of the season, there were a few juvenile birds with the
adults, but none last year.  I'm hoping for a few juvies this year.  I've
been wanting to ask if anyone knows where these birds are nesting this year,
as they can't be too far away, but it sounds like nobody knows.  If they are
from a nesting colony, it is not a very big one.

 

Odette James

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