Celebrity Bird Spotted at Jersey Shore
Andy McGann pulled an all-nighter to film a rare North American visitor. Here are the results.
Sixteen years. That’s how long it had been since a Whiskered Tern was last spotted on this side of the Atlantic. When Andy McGann heard the news, he had no choice but to leave home at 1 am to make the six-hour drive to the southern tip of New Jersey. He arrived at Cape May Point State Park just in time for the sun to rise on the Whiskered Tern show.
“The species is a full-blooded ‘Code 5 Rarity’ as designated by the American Birding Association. It must have crossed a whole lot of Western Europe where it would have been considered a vagrant before transiting the Atlantic Ocean. It should probably be in Africa right now. This bird is a big deal,” McGann writes in a blog on Nemesis Bird.
With his iPhone, spotting scope, and Kowa adapter in hand, McGann was able to capture quality footage of the tern as it skimmed through the skies and along the water in search of insects. He then turned his clips into a 4-minute highlight reel, posted on Nemesis Bird.
Whiskered Tern from Andy McGann on Vimeo.
McGann also writes: “In putting this video together I must have watched the individual segments hundreds of times. Oddly enough, I find myself still watching it over and over again. This is an epic bird, and after all of the magnificent photographs I’ve seen, the untold story is how this bird moves.”
In the video, the tern shows off some feisty acrobatics (particularly at the 1:30 mark, when things get wet and wild). But it also reveals the nomadic bird’s easygoing nature as it lounges around on the beach, preening and preparing for the next leg of its long migration.
Though the Whiskered Tern is a very special visitor, it’s easy to miss in the sea of native Common Terns. The Cape May Bird Observatory advises birders to check for flashes of dark gray that appear on the underbelly of the Whiskered Tern, as well as a shorter, redder beak and broader wings.