On May 7, 2015 I encountered a huge migrating Common-Black Tern flock (or rather several huge flocks) resting along about 1.5 mile long stretch of the beach at southern part of the Bolivar Peninsula known as Bolivar Flats. I estimated (very coarse estimate) number of COTE to be about 20- 30 thousands so I report the low number. I just divided that number by twenty to get even more coarse number of BLTEs (one thousand) that should be a very low estimate as well (most BLTE stayed well concealed between much bigger COTE when resting). I did not check the beach up north from Bolivar Flats so the numbers of both species resting on the Peninsula on that day could be significantly larger.

It is interesting from the point of migration routes and dates COTE takes during the spring migration. The eBird database for Texas shows these COTE records (all recorded years): spring migration in April – 800 and in May – 200. Largest number was recorded during fall migration, beginning of October – 5000.

On that day (May 7) I left COTE-BLTE flocks resting on the beach right before sundown (note: there was almost no human disturbance on that evening). Next day (May 8), afternoon, I found only about 1500 COTE resting (2 large flocks) and only a few dozen BLTE. After somebody drove intentionally into resting birds the number of returning birds started to shrink. After 7 PM were only a few dozen COTE on the beach and flats. I did not have time to check this place during the next day.