Someone Terned off the heat!

Tweet Thunderstorms have given way to a much nicer, cooler, and less humid air mass. Being cooped up for about two weeks due to mid - high 90° temps, I had to take advantage of the nice weather.

August is the time that I start to see terns appearing on the beach at East Fork. I love terns! I have to go early to avoid the people. I found this gorgeous Forster's Tern there the other day.

Forster's Tern

And a quick drive by of the beach yesterday produced this nice looking Black Tern. It just flew in and landed in the corner of the beach with the local Ring-billed Gull flock.

Black Tern in non-breeding plumage

Ospreys are also moving through, two have been fishing the lake for the last couple of days.

Osprey

Got lucky and found this beautiful Prothonotary Warbler this morning while looking for a Red-headed Woodpecker that I heard calling. I never found the Red-headed, but I got good looks at the Prothonotary.

Prothonotary Warbler

It's already time for the American Goldfinches to start nesting. They start nesting later than other birds as to coincide with the abundance of food from blooming thistles. Here, a female gathers nesting material from a cattail.

Female American Goldfinch

Young of the year Red-bellied Woodpeckers have been hanging around the yard eating peaches from my peach tree. Here is one that spooked when I opened the back door. Notice that it is just getting its red crown.

Young Red-bellied Woodpecker

Also been seeing a lot of butterflies and dragonflies. Here, I leave you with this photo from today of a Twelve Spotted Skimmer.

12 Spotted Skimmer

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Tern of the Season

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With everyone talking about the possibility of good birds showing up with the unusual weather pattern currently over Ohio, I decided to spend some time at East Fork looking for birds.

The air was much cooler than it has been and the winds were blowing pretty good out of the west. The water was very choppy. I didn't get there until around 4pm, so there were people swimming and walking dogs on the beach. However, I was able to spot a non breeding Forster's Tern coming in from out over the lake. It landed very near me on the beach with the Ring-billed Gulls.

The way to tell this bird from the non breeding Common Tern would be the lack of dark black across the crown of the head. Forster's has a kind of black eye mask. Also, the Common has a black carpal bar (shoulder) which the Forster's lacks.

I did spot 4 Black Terns in winter plumage as well way out skimming the surface of the lake. Later, I also spotted a flock of 3 Pectoral Sandpipers flying out over the lake.

I will definitely take the change of season, even if it is only temporary! (Supposed to be back to near 90° next week.)

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