As one of the many birders that during the past seven days has shared in the memorable sighting of the Tuscarawas County adult breeding plumage Sooty Tern, knowing the lifestyle and the future probable travels of this specie, make the bird that much more special. A thank you goes out to Hurricane Irma for delivering the celebrity visitor to our area. Another thank you goes out to Kent Miller for finding this beauty, only the second record ever for Ohio. This largely pelagic tropical tern normally only comes ashore to nest. Ohio would definitely not be on the usual itinerary for this bird. For most birders wanting to put it on their life-list, they would have to travel sixty miles west of Key West, to their Dry Tortugas breeding colony. This is the western limits of their Caribbean haunts, with Cuba being the center of the normal breeding area. During the non-breeding time, they travel around 5000 miles east across the Atlantic Ocean to an area off the west coast of Africa. Pretty impressive! Here they normally spend most of their time resting on the surface of the sea. To put this into perspective, it was only 1125 miles that Hurricane Irma blew the Sooty Tern to the Bair Road gravel pit site. As could be seen when the Sooty was giving aerial displays, for a small bodied bird, the wingspan, up to thirty-six inches, was obviously noticeable, for those long flights to the African coast. Also, I am sure that all of us who recently lost our special birding friend Hallie Mason, when retelling memories of the Sooty Tern, thoughts of Hallie will also be talked about. Hallie would have loved this close to home county bird. Her beautiful place was only about 3.5 miles by the way the crow flies, from the Sooty Tern site. The Sooty Tern will hold special memories for all of us.


Bob Lane / Mahoning County

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