Common Terns Bathing

Sunrise

Sunday morning I left my house at 0-dark-30, so I could arrived at Plymouth harbor at 4 AM.  I joined Mike Milicia group to take the water taxi out to the tip of Plymouth beach.  We arrived on the beach, prior to sunrise and hiked around to the bayside to the location where all the activity was.  Laughing gulls and common terns were flying over us.  As the sun slowly rose in the East, we were able to photograph the birds in the golden light.  A pair of black skimmers were nesting near the edge of the dune which did allow for pictures.

Black Skimmer

I walked down to the waters edge, where I was observing the common terns bathing.  Common terns have an interesting methodology in their dating sequence.  Like most birds.  They set in the water and use their wings this to create a spray of water, or they duck under the water.  But, rather than just a flap of the wings, they fly out of the water and then settle into another area and repeat the sequence, again.  Finally they come on shore, where the common terns preen their feathers.

I photographed a lot more than the black skimmers and the terns bathing, but I'm going to leave what else we found for the next blog.