Most colors for the least tern

It’s a dangerous time to be walking in Plover Park right now, because the least tern eggs have begun to hatch. Least tern are one of the four main species of beach-nesting birds who historically call LBI home, but have struggled here ever since we took over the beach.

Least tern generally nest as a large group (a colony) and that’s exactly what formed once the three-acre Clearcut area was added to the park in 2025. Least terns absolutely poured into it, just a few months after it was completed. That’s how desperate they are for a little space of their own. We’re happy they have this space now, because they are really, really adorable local creatures.

While it’s easy to simply avoid the colony completely, there are always some random, anti-social least terns who like to go rogue and nest in strange places, sometimes very close to piping plover nests we need to keep an eye on.

It was one of these nests I stumbled upon the other evening, just as it was hatching. I took these two quick pictures with my phone because they show something I love about least terns.

These two, teeny-tiny chicks are from the same nest, are playing dead, and were probably hatched just a few hours before I took these pictures. You can even see the little, white “egg tooth” on the tip of their bills. They used their egg tooths to cut themselves out of their eggs.

But look at those colors! Least tern babies come in different flavors! While piping plovers and oystercatchers are all appropriately, randomly speckled and camouflaged for the beach, they pretty much all look the same tone.

But with least terns you often see a bunch of variety, usually in the form of a more golden variety, and a more grey variety, with varying amounts of speckles and stripes. Sometimes you’ll even see 100% golden chicks. Those ones look like little chickens or something. Most colors for the least tern.

It’s been my experience that it is much more rare to see two babies in the same nest that are the same color than it is to see a big variation.

These two were hatched from a rarer three egg nest (our least tern generally lay just one or two eggs) but unfortunately, the third egg still hadn’t hatched when I found them.

I would have loved to have seen what flavor that third baby was!

I’m still not sure what my favorite flavor of least tern is.