Rare roseate tern spotted along Lake Erie. Here's how you can get a glimpse of the bird

Birders, head to the city of Huron on the shores of Lake Erie to catch a glimpse of a rare visitor to the Buckeye State, a roseate tern.

It's the first documented sighting of a roseate tern in the state, said Jamey Emmert, avian education coordinator for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. It's very unusual to find this coastal bird so far inland.

"It’s a very exciting time for birdwatchers," she said.

According to a Facebook post shared by the Ohio Division of Wildlife, the bird was first spotted July 6, and by the next day was already attracting scores of watchers.

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All about the roseate tern

According to All About Birds, managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the roseate tern is found on the Atlantic coast of the United States, split between New England and the Caribbean. It forages for small schools of fish in the ocean, and nests on hard-to-visit islands.

You might be able to spot them from a boat, Emmert said.

Adults in their breeding plumage are chalky white overall, with pale gray upper wings, a black cap and a blackish bill that's mostly orange in Caribbean populations, according to All About Birds. The roseate tern's name comes from the rose-colored underparts in the breeding plumage, which can be difficult to see on sunny days.

How did a roseate tern find its way to Ohio?

So how did this bird get here? Emmert said that's a real conundrum.

“This is definingly unusual for this species," she said, "[being this far] out of its migratory path.”

Biologists have bird migratory patterns organized into four general paths, called flyways. But those mean nothing to birds, Emmert said.

It's possible this bird is wired differently than its brothers and sisters, Emmert said, and wandered off what should have been its instinctual migration path. It's just as possible that it was blown in ahead of Hurricane Beryl, the remnants of which recently passed through the state.

"Weather plays a huge part in bird movement,” Emmert said.

There was also some speculation that this bird was the same one recently reported in Upstate New York, she said. But the Ohio bird had been banded for study at some point, while the New York bird was not.

Roseate tern not the first rare bird to visit Ohio

The roseate tern isn't the only rare bird to visit the Buckeye State in recent years.

This past winter, an ancient murrelet was sighted in Lorain, Emmert said. This species is found on the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada, and breeds in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.

“It was living the high life in Lake Erie, eating freshwater fish," she said.

Why it showed up in Lake Erie? We'll never know, Emmert said. But it was one of a few sighted in the Great Lakes region. When that happens, it's suspected that weather patterns threw the birds off course.

And in 2020, a brown booby was spotted at the Nimisila Reservoir just outside of Akron, believed to have been blown inland by a hurricane, according to a previous Beacon Journal article. It's typical habitat is the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.

The booby drew birders from across the Midwest for a week or two before it vanished. It was believed to have been killed by a peregrine falcon, which had been sizing up the Gulf Coast bird for a meal for several days before that.

How to see the roseate tern along Lake Erie

If you're hoping to get a glimpse of the roseate tern, Emmert recommends checking with birding groups on social media -- such as Birding Ohio -- to see all the updates on where the bird was last sighted. She called it a once-in-a-lifetime sight for many birders.

“I think it's worthy of going to see this bird,” she said.