Terns.
Terns are gulls in miniature, on which account it is probable that many a visitor to the seashore passes them unwittingly. But let him watch next time for what look like flocks of tiny, long-winged, and unusually active gulls, now hovering gracefully in the air, and now suddenly plunging headlong like an arrow to the sea, with a force and dash that will surprise him, now that attention is drawn to them. These are terns. From their vivacity and forked tails, they have been aptly named Sea-swallows.
Photo by G. Watmough Webster & Son] [Chester.
TERNS ON A SHINGLE BANK.
Terns lay their eggs among the shingle; from their coloration, these are difficult to detect among the surrounding stones.
There are several species of tern. Like the Gulls, they have a distinctive dress for summer and winter, but the sexes are both dressed alike. The general livery, as with the Gulls, is pearly grey above and pure white below—in summer, in some species, relieved by a black head. One species, the Roseate Tern, has the breast suffused with a most exquisite rose-pink, which fades rapidly after death, however. Young terns, in their first plumage, differ conspicuously from their parents, having much brown intermixed with grey.
Terns lay about three eggs, which are deposited among the shingle on the beach; and so closely do the eggs, and later on the young, resemble the surrounding stones that it is almost impossible to find them. As a rule terns breed in colonies, often numbering many thousand birds.
There are exceptions to the rule just laid down as to nest-building. One species of the Noddy Terns, for example, builds a nest of turf and dry grass, placed in bushes or in low trees. It seems to return to the same nest year after year, adding on each return new materials, till they form masses nearly 2 feet in height. Occasionally it appears to make a mud-nest, placed in the fork of a tree; whilst the superb little White Noddy often deposits its egg on the leaf of a cocoanut-palm—truly a wonderful site, and still more wonderful when we reflect that it is chosen by one of the Gull Tribe.
About six species of tern commonly occur in the British Islands, and some five or six other species occasionally visit them.