FLYday - Common Tern

Common Tern with fish - Phippsburg,

Maine

FLYday is an homage to what our feathered friends do best, fly.

"Welcome To The Sand Lance Buffet!" Common Terns, Double-crested Cormorants, Harbor Seal

Common Tern with a mouthful of Sand Lances

Common Terns, adults and juveniles feasting on Sand Lances. "Mom! Got any tartar sauce for these?" 

Double-crested Cormorants patrolling for Sand Lances  

Everybody wanted in on that action! This Harbor Seal showed up while I was photographing the birds.

    The same day that I photographed the gulls hawking the ants, there was another kind of feeding frenzy going on in Totman Cove: Welcome to the Sand Lance 'all-you-can-eat' Buffet! Sand Lances are a slim, elongated, schooling fish. Although they are eel-like in their shape and movements, they aren't a true eel. There are eighteen varieties of them found across the globe. They range from eight to eighteen inches long. The ones in these photographs were the short ones. Nonetheless, it would gross me out to be swimming with them. I have a phobia about the bottoms of bodies of water when I can't see what's down there. Just the idea that these creatures could be around my legs creeps me out severely. Give me a clear, swimming pool or at least an actual snake or spider that I can see.
     Sand Lances are an important food for forty-five species of predacious fishes, some invertebrates, twelve species of marine mammals and forty species of birds. I watched seals, ospreys, cormorants, gulls, and terns feeding on them. Even an eagle showed up and lurked in the trees. It didn't try for any of the slithery little fishes, but did seem very interested in all the action. I suppose for an eagle it would be like eating a fistful of French fries, hardly worth the bother. The ospreys that were diving for them were juveniles. The fish, barely visible in the big birds' talons, were probably crushed to mush by the time they got to a perch to consume them. The eagle gave chase to an osprey; gulls and terns chased the eagle and the osprey; terns and gulls dove on the cormorants when they surfaced with the Sand Lances and God only knows what was going on below the surface. See? That's why I don't like swimming in there! Horrible horrors! A person could get mauled in the melee.
     Sand Lances aren't eaten here, but I can imagine them lightly breaded, fried and eaten whole - bones and all like Smelts. Yummy! Now you're talkin'! A generous squeeze of lemon and some home-made tartar sauce, a side of Cajun curly fries and cole slaw............get the nets! I'm ready for 'em. See how easy I am? If I can relate a thing to anything with mayonnaise, I'm okay.

If you would like more scientific information about Sand Lances, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_lance

If you want recipes, see me on The Food Channel!

August Is The High Season - Summer Terns

Semipalmated plover atop giant net floats - Lobster Cove, Phippsburg, Maine

Juvenile, Common terns vocalizing to its mother for food - Totman Cove, Phippsburg, Maine

Common terns ignoring young pestering for food or maybe it was mooning me! The full moon often looks orange in summer rising through heat and haze on the earth's surface.

"E" is for ecstasy. "W" is for wild. Those words crown all that we do in these moments of summer. August is "high season" here in The Burg. We have had  a glorious summer weather-wise, which means that we've been unrelentingly busy. Weeds and lawns keep growing even though we'd like to quit. Everything around us seems full to the point of out of control. My garden is busting at the seams. The lilies are enormous and toppling over. All the fledged birds are bickering at the feeders along with their parents. The Ruby-throated hummingbirds are fighting each other over feeder territories. The raccoon youngsters are rifling the feeders at night rousting our dog, then us, from sleep. Acorns are falling from the oaks set into free fall by porcupine young lolling at the ends of the fresh growth in the tree tops. Totman Cove is teaming with mackerel, Striped bass and fry just right for the terns. We hear the Blue Fin tuna are running hard just off from Sequin and everyone is talking about it. The Common terns are chattering constantly not giving us a moments peace punctuated only by the pee-ooo pee-oo of ospreys. It feels like everyone on the eastern seaboard with a boat is here sailing, fishing and motoring. There aren't enough evenings for cocktails with all of our friends, days to boat, swim, eat, garden or even just breathe it all in fast enough. Because, suddenly, it will be over.

     For all of this nearly maddening plenitude, any moment now, it will all stop. This is the great crescendo when breeding, seeding, weeding and sunny days have reached their critical mass. Fall will be here feeling quite sudden, though I can see the signs. The Monarch butterflies have made a couple of appearances, lilting around the flowers. They are the first of the migraters to Mexico. One or two of the fall blooming anemones have opened. The first asters have opened intertwined with fading roses. With the summer terns, summer is turning. It's bittersweet. But, honestly, I can't keep up this pace. Truth be told, my old skin can't take any more sun nor salt. My back feels broken and my brain needs quiet time. A few more days on our little boat with my husband or afternoons naked in the swimming pool will be all I need. Then, I'll be looking for a jacket to wrap me against the next full, cool moon.  

Terns Being Fed As Promised

For some reason, I could not include these shots in the previous post. Suppose it was because I was being a memory hog? As promised, in the last shot the baby is being fed fish.

"To Everything Terns, Terns......."

In Small Point Harbor there is a boat mooring field. In that field is a float, on the float is a stack of lobster traps, on the stack of lobster traps on the float in the mooring field is a colony of Common terns. Can you say that ten times fast? I could not get enough of these terns and took scads of photographs. They are quite habituated to people as they are in the middle of the mooring field so I could get very close to them. The parents were bringing in little fish for the youngsters (click on the last photo to enlarge and you'll see that). Noisy, they utter a loud "kkkkeeeeey," as they swoop around. I love their streamlined bodies and sharply contrasted coloration. Plus, they are so gregarious! A bird after my own heart, indeed. I'm glad I don't own the boats that they favor for perching, though. What a mess they make!