Memorial Day marked the unofficial start of summer and peak season for Alabama’s beaches. An estimated 8 million people will visit Gulf Shores and Orange Beach in coastal Alabama this year, not to mention Dauphin Island.

If you’re one of those visitors this summer, you may see the least tern, a spunky seabird, nesting in the sand nearby.

“I could just sit and watch them for hours,” said Cortney Weatherby, a biologist with Alabama Audubon who works on the coast. “They are kind of busy bodies, like they’re always doing something. They’re not a boring bird, that’s for sure.”

The least tern breeds along the Gulf Coast in the spring and summer. As the smallest bird in the tern family, it’s about the size of a robin, with longer wings.

But don’t be fooled by their size or beauty: least terns are feisty. If you get near their nests, they’ll attack, swooping down and pooping on you, said Lianne Koczur, science and conservation director with Alabama Audubon, the local chapter of the national birder group. So it’s best to admire them from a distance.

“You’ve got to kind of respect that they have such a strong parental instinct to protect their young,” Weatherby said.

Males will present fish to females as part of a mating ritual, and they dig nests in the sand by sitting on their bellies and kicking their legs behind them.

Their personalities are mimicked in their appearance: adults are white and gray, with a black cap that lines their eyes and makes them look angry, Koczur said.

“I think that’s the big defining feature, that black head coming down, kind of a mask over the eyes,” Koczur said. “They do look fierce and they are pretty fierce for a small bird.”

Still, least terns are more tolerant of humans and other disturbances than other shorebirds: there are about 500-1,000 pairs that nest in Alabama, Koczur said, and some of them breed on beaches like Alabama Point in Orange Beach, where humans like to hang out. Other tern species and shorebirds won’t nest near humans.

When scientists with Alabama Audubon discover least tern nests on the beach, they put up a sign to warn beachgoers to stay away. They’ll also put up “chick shelters,” little plywood structures that provide shade to baby least terns.

While least terns are not considered endangered — a population of inland terns was removed from the endangered species list in 2021 — the least terns that breed in Alabama have a hard time successfully nesting and growing their young, for a variety of reasons, Koczur said.

Least tern nests are almost invisible on the beach. That makes them vulnerable to disturbances, like dogs or people running through them. Predators, like foxes and other birds, eat their eggs as well.

The terns are “colonial nesters,” meaning they nest in large groups. As a result, large storms and high tides can wash out entire colonies of terns, Koczur said. And development of the shoreline destroys the habitat the birds use to nest.

Least terns primarily eat fish. They hover over the sea and dive for fish when they see one. However, they need land to rest, unlike other seabirds, so they stay close to the shore.

Starting as early as July, least terns will begin migrating south for the winter, settling in coastal habitats in the Caribbean, Central America and the northern coast of South America. They’ll return to the Gulf Coast starting in March, according to the Audubon Society.

Alabama Audubon monitors the least tern, as well as the 12 other bird species that nest on the beaches in the state. These birds are vulnerable to many threats, both from predators and human activity, Weatherby said. It’s important to pay attention to those threats before their population declines too much.

“You look at all the threats that are facing these birds and they’re telling us a story of a changing coastline,” Weatherby said. “And I think it’s really important that we listen before it is too late, before we develop so much and we love our coast to death and then it’s no longer the place that we fell in love with.”

This story is part of “Beautiful Birds of Alabama,” a series exploring some of the state’s unique birds.