Least Terns visit Inyo County this Summer

[Originally appeared in the Sierra Wave newsletter, Vol. 26, No. 1, Sept-Oct 2007 – click here for original with photos]

The Least Tern, all nine inches of it, is the smallest tern found in the U.S. It is a neotropical migrant that winters in Central and South America and in the far West summers along the coastal beaches and sandbars north to central California. While it is found inland as a regular but rare spring and summer visitor at the Salton Sea and along the Colorado River, it had been found in Inyo County only eleven times. Because this species utilizes the same beaches that man and accompanying dogs, cats, and rats do, the conflict has reduced the numbers to such seriously low levels that it has been given Endangered status in an effort to save it from extinction.

On 12 June 2007 Mike and Joy Bowen, visiting birders from New Jersey, stopped at Klondike Lake to add more western species to their trip list. To their surprise they found the twelfth county record of Least Tern and recognizing that this coastal species was probably unexpected here, photographed it and notified local birders. The observation was immediately posted on the Eastern Sierra Birds website and other birders came to see and photograph this wayward migrant.

On 18 August 2007 Tom Heindel found and photographed a first summer (one-year-old) Least Tern, again at Klondike Lake, for the thirteenth Inyo County record. This very late bird is two months outside the known temporal distribution in the Eastern Sierra. Kern Countys spring window is 12 May to 23 June, all adults, while in Mono County there is only one record of two adults in early July.

Of the first twelve Inyo County records all are in spring from 19 May (2002 at Furnace Creek Ranch) to 16 June (2005 at Tinemaha Reservoir). This nicely frames the Bowen find and reflects passage of birds returning north in spring. All were adult birds except the June and August birds that were first summer birds. All records are single birds except when two were found 31 May 1987 at Tecopa. In the last decade, with greater coverage than in the past, Least Tern has been documented just five times. This is not an expected species in the Eastern Sierra and any observer who finds one needs to follow the protocol to prove their claim and add a significant record to the ornithological history of the county.