Richard Gordon, age i3, of Clifton Heights, Pa., for his question.
What are terns?
Elegant is the word to use for this graceful bird. You are most likely to spot him along the shore, fishing for his dinner in the sea. From a distance, you might mistake him for his cousin the sea gull. But the timid tern is far more graceful than his bulky relative.
You may need a pair of field glasses to watch this shy bird. But it is well worth your time and trouble to study the flight and habits of the graceful tern. He is such an elegant creature that he has earned the name of sea swallow. Like the handsome barn swallow, his streamlined body is set off with four spears of pointed pinions. He is neat and elegant enough to rival the stuffed bird on a lady’s fancy hat.
The common tern is about half the size of has clumsy cousin, the Sea gull. His plumage is spanking white with a flat cap of glossy black. Sometimes the black cap glimmers with a greenish sheen. His dainty feet are webbed for swimming and his long, slender bill is as straight as a dart. His snowy white wings taper to points and there are two stiff points to tip the ends of his forked swallow tail.
There are 45 species Of the tern each one more handsome than all the rest. They are web footed shore birds that, like the sea gulls, depend for their food upon the sea. However, terns and gulls disagree about diet and feeding habits.
The gulls skim over the waves, swooping dawn now and then to grab and gobble a mouthful. They devour anything near the surface, living or dead. The dainty terns are not scavengers. They eat only live food and to catch it they plunge dawn headlong, diving right into the water.
Most of the graceful sea swallows are white birds crowned with caps of brown or glossy black. A few terns are brown birds and a few wear plumage of smoky black. As a rule, they nest in colonies on the tundras and lonely shores. Some nest in hollows and some build nests Of seaweed in the bushes. The so called fairy tern balances her egg on the bark of a horizontal branch.
The most favorite of the dainty sea swallows is the acetic tern, long distance champion of the bird world. His plumage is pearly gray above and snowy white below. He is costumed in a shiny black cap with beak and stockings of scarlet. The Arctic tern nests in the Arctic and migrates to the Antarctic to avoid the northern winter. Each Year the trip may be 22,000 miles.