So I'm standin' in the kitchen area gettin' breakfast ready and I catch a glimpse outta the corner of my eye; a large white bird...no, about 3. The only large white birds that I have seen at the pond were egrets, so I grab the binocs and scoot over to the picture windows. Well, there's more like 10 or 12 of them, and they ain't egrets. They were large, very white, distinct black cap and long yellow'ish bill. Hmmm....never saw this breed at the pond before, so I watched 'em darting and swooping over the water. Then one folds up and goes into a vertical dive! OK, this is NOT good. That's all I needed to see. I opened the window and started clapping as rapidly and loudly as possible. It took a couple of minutes, and my hands and arm muscles were startin' to burn, but the group of moochers got disenchanted, circled a half dozen times within the pond treeline, and hit the horizon; gone.
I grabbed the bird book and presume them to be common terns. New experience for me.
