Sterna hirundo
Order Charadriiformes
Family Laridae
Subfamily Sterninae
Adult in summer.— Top of head black; back and wings pearl-gray; tail white; under parts grayish-white; bill red, blackish at tip.
Adult in autumn.— Similar, but forehead and forward part of crown white, mixed with black on the crown; under parts pure bill less red.
Immature.— Similar to fall adult, but bill brownish.
The Common Tern is a summer resident on the coast of New York and New England, but south of the Maine coast it breeds in only a few colonies; Gull Island, off Long Island, Muskeget Island, and Penikese, near Martha’s Vineyard, are the largest of these. On the Maine coast there are many colonies. The Tern arrives in May, and leaves in September. Along those parts of the coast where it does not breed, it is seen as a migrant in May, and more commonly in August and September. Many young birds may be found in late summer congregating on beaches at some distance from the nearest breeding-ground.
The ordinary cries of the Common Tern are a harsh, short kip, and a continual tee, tee, tee, which breaks, when the bird is excited, into a harsh teel-arr; no one who has ever set foot on an island colonized by terns will ever forget the ear-splitting din made by thousands of angry birds uttering this cry. Terns may easily be distinguished from gulls by the long forked tail; in adults, moreover, the whole top of the head is black. When feeding, terns hover at some distance above the water, with bill pointing downward, and seize their prey by a quick downward plunge, which carries them often well under water. Their flight is more buoyant than a gull’s; each stroke of the long, narrow wings lifts them easily upward. When not feeding, they gather in large flocks on some exposed sand-spit, but are restless, and often rise, wheel about, and settle again, for no apparent reason. They also light on spindles, spars, and any available perch, and often on the water. When seen near at hand, the red bill with its black tip is conspicuous, and distinguishes the Common Tern from the Arctic and Roseate terns. Young birds and old birds in the fall have whitish foreheads.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)