Blog No 37 The White Tern in Hawaii
When Michele and I recently visited our friend, Wayne, who lives near Diamond Head, we took early morning walks along Diamond Head road next to the extinct volcano. Tropical Storm Fausto had just passed by northern island chain and we observed a large number of surfers riding the waves toward the beach.
I was intrigued by seeing white terns flying gracefully from the ocean up into the clear blue skies. When we reached Kapiolani Park I saw birds landing in the branches of trees, a truly weird behavior for terns. Hawaiians know these birds as Manu-o-Kû and the tern became the official bird of Honolulu in 2007. Ornithologists have now delineated three species of white terns that inhabit the islands of the Pacific. The species in Honolulu is call Blue-billed White Tern (Gygis candida). I found a website that shows where scores of individual nests are located, mostly between Diamond Head and Kapiolani Park. The site also shows good areas where one can photograph the terns but I did learn about it until I was writing this blog. The tern has a forked tail, a bluish-black beak and black eyes. These terns were historically associated with the Marine National Monument in the northwestern chain, but they have become increasingly more numerous in Honolulu.
White terns are famous for laying their egg in a forked branch or in a concave area of a monkeypod or banyan tree without building a nest. (Most terns nest on the ground in colonies and lay their eggs in open spaces on the ground near water.) A pair of white terns take turns incubating their eggs, and during the day they may fly vast distances over the ocean to find food that includes small silvery marine fish, juvenile flying fish, needlefish, other small fish and small squid. There is no evidence that their diet has changed so perhaps the reason they thrive in urban areas is their young are protected better, but no one knows.
