Written: 23rd Jul 2004 | Last Updated: 23rd Jul 2004
On tropical and sub-tropical oceans and islands, there lives a particularly attractive species of bird that draws admiring glances from whoever has the good fortune to see them. They are collectively known as Gygis alba of the Family Sternidae – otherwise known as the White Tern, or Fairy Tern. The breed was classified by Swedish naturalist Anders Sparrman in 1786.
They are lovely birds with sleek, snow-white feathers, dark eyes circled with black, dark legs, feet and beaks, an elegant forked tail and slender, V-shaped wings that allow them to sail silently, majestically, on the constant thermals of their habitat. If you look up at them on a sunny day, their wings seem almost translucent and quite other-worldly.
I’ve enjoyed watching them over the years during regular visits to Norfolk Island in the South Pacific. Locals love telling you that “one good tern deserves another” - because the Fairy Terns that sweep over that beautiful, tiny island usually do so in pairs. They’re sublime dancers and acrobats, seemingly in love with one another as they fly tandem, simultaneously improvising precision-perfect choreography.
There is a colony of about two thousand that has made the waters around Norfolk its home. Some of the terns stay year-round, however most only take up residence during spring and summer, arriving sometime after August and staying until March. The rest of the year, they sail over the seas.
They are categorised as pelagic birds - living in the open ocean - and usually only come ashore to breed. Often at dusk and dawn, they skilfully forage for small fish and squid – diving from the sky to dip their beaks below the surface, but without immersing their bodies. They are known to catch flying-fish on the wing – a clever talent. They carry several fish at a time crosswise in their bills when ferrying food back to their hungry young.
Males and females share the responsibility for incubating a chick – each pair produces only one per season. They do not construct a nest – rather, they choose a suitably high branch in a Norfolk Island pine, generally located in a forested stand near the shore, and clear a small indentation of its bark. The female lays the speckled egg straight on the bough – and if the pair has done its homework, it will stay put until hatching time about twenty-eight days later.
One island summer, I watched and waited for just such a balancing egg to crack and reveal its wet, fluffy chick. When baby emerged, it was restricted to home like a naughty teenager until feathers and body grew enough for him to be able to follow his parents to sea. I didn’t stay on Norfolk long enough to see him tackle the real world – they go to sea after 60-75 days – but I imagine he managed perfectly on a pair of smooth, whiter-than-white wings. Fairy Terns live quite a long time - up to eighteen years – so maybe he’s still out there, capturing flying fish and ferrying them home to new generations of hungry hatchlings.