04.27.22 - 05.11.22
We shall miss Tsuki 月!
Of all the white-tern chicks we’ve had at HNS, Tsuki 月 made the most eye contact with her many admirers and was the most curious about the two-leggeds looking up at her.
She was also chockablock full of personality, some of which was captured in photos.
Enjoy a few more photographs plus quotations from Susan Scott’s Hawaiʻi’s White Tern published by UH Press.
04.27.22
Ornithologist George C. Munro speculated that the bird’s original Hawaiian name might have been ʻohu, a word that the Hawaiian Dictionary defines as “mist, fog, vapor, light cloud on a mountain…”
—Susan Scott, Hawaiʻi’s White Tern
Above: Look carefully—both of Tsuki’s parents have fish in their beaks! Of course, Tsuki 月 is nowhere to be found!
According to master Hawaiian navigator Nainano Thompson, president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, “the manu-o-Kū go about 120 miles out”… in their search for fish and squid.
—Susan Scott, Hawaiʻi’s White Tern
In 1961, the first White Terns breeding on Oʻahu were noted when an avid birder photographed an adult sitting on an egg in a Kiwi tree near Koko Head. Since then, the White Tern population has steadily increased in Honolulu.
—Susan Scott, Hawaiʻi’s White Tern
The White Tern is the only conspicuous native bird breeding in the trees of Honoluluʻs parks, yards, and city streets.
—Susan Scott, Hawaiʻi’s White Tern
05.08.22 - 05.11.22
For reasons unknown, pairs prefer (so far) the south side of [O’ahu], from Liu Valley to Sand Island, even though the tall trees the birds favor grow throughout O’ahu… White Terns are abundant in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands…
—Susan Scott, Hawaiʻi’s White Tern
Just before egg laying, both parents lose feathers on their bellies, creating bare skin patches that help transfer the adults’ body heat to the egg, and later to the newly-hatched chick.
—Susan Scott, Hawaiʻi’s White Tern
It’s easy to identify a White Tern’s graceful, nearly floating flight… The fluttering flight of White Terns is distinct and, once you know it, unmistakable.
—Susan Scott, Hawaiʻi’s White Tern
White Terns usually live 16 to 18 years, but there are exceptions. On O’ahu, the oldest known White Tern is 37 years old.
—Susan Scott, Hawaiʻi’s White Tern