(Editor's Note: This is the first of two articles about bird life around a Woodbury pond.)

I live in a Woodbury condo, which has a pond that measures about 20 yds by 70 yds. Early this past summer, two willow trees, which line the pond's embankment collapsed during a very heavy rain, fell in and were subsequently removed. This was a prelude to the arrival of a few birds called terns, which I thought should have been fishing in the ocean at least 10 miles away.

Terns are white birds, about the size of gulls and to the casual eye are easily mistaken for them. Terns however have straight, pointed bills, are sleeker and have long tapered, dramatically angled wings in flight that give them a supersonic aircraft look. In mid-air they can turn on a dime, plunge dive into the water and come up with a small wriggling silver fish. I've always seen them by the ocean so when one showed up at the pond in our Woodbury condo one day, I thought the tern was just off course. It showed up again a few days later. One afternoon, a short time after that, I improbably saw four terns fishing the pond. Obviously this was not a one shot deal.

They were flying up and down the length of the pond seeming so out of place in a suburban condo pond. It was odd not seeing a larger group of them over a shimmering ocean or up closer standing on white sand. I'd watched common terns fly and dive before but what I was looking at now wasn't Terns 101; this was Terns 102. They seemed to make 90-degree turns with outstretched wings. Those long razor-like wings appeared tucked against their bodies at the last possible instant as they entered the water bill first. Now I was hearing the splash. They didn't seem to get anything but moved so quickly that I wasn't sure if I could see them better, with binoculars or without. I didn't see them hover over the water's surface as they sometimes do, but I did see one slow up in mid-flight and cruise low over a swath of small leaves in the water. All the while their soft Z sounds filled the corridor above the pond.

I was soon disabused of the idea that these were common terns. Common terns have blood red bills that are black tipped and red legs, which contrast with their black caps and white bodies which makes them uncommonly beautiful. As one flew closer and closer to where I was standing the bird had an orange/yellow bill and its legs were the same color. Although puzzled as to what kind of terns they were, I watched dazzled by their aerial maneuvers.

As soon as the terns were gone I went home and opened a field guide. They were Forster's terns, which I'd never seen before. In doing some research I felt better learning that so similar are the Forster's and common terns that it took until the mid-nineteenth century for ornithologists to determine that they were two separate species. The bird was named for Johann Reinhold Forster, a German naturalist. I was also impressed with reading that a 1921 account stated that these birds could skim the water for prey without getting wet. Still there was something that puzzled me. Two of the birds were mature and two weren't. One landed in the water seemingly to rest a while. Was this an immature bird learning to fish but not being successful? Was I watching a family of Forster's terns? If so that posed a larger question: What was a family of Forster's terns doing in Woodbury?

Early the following evening a lone tern was again cruising. I watched as it went into the water unsuccessfully a few times and then came up seemingly with something in its bill. The tern then flew up and over the trees. Was family fishing a failure and was this adult bringing home part of an immature bird's dinner in its bill? The mystery was deepening. The fact that I'd seen them several times suggested that there was a nest nearby. Probably near water and the nearest water was a pond about a half-mile west of here in an industrial park.

I'd like to tell you that I went up to the industrial park and after some sleuthing found a family of these terns nesting there, but that didn't happen. The weather turned insufferably hot and humid, we went away for a few days and upon returning the weather worsened. The terns also were gone. In the course of my research I would read that these birds sometimes nest in inland marshes. Still I'd never seen them here before and have to believe their occurrence in a suburban pond such as this is quite rare.

Some weeks later the pond became a mini birding hot spot for a small number of large fish eating birds. While I'd occasionally seen some of these birds here before, never had I seen so many different species for more than two weeks. Instead of wondering why the terns had been here I should have been focusing on the fact that there was enough life including fish in the pond for them and now for these fishing hunting birds. While I can't make a scientific argument, I cannot help but feel that somehow those trees, which had fallen before any of these birds showed up, helped to make this pond into a primeval soup kitchen rich with life for them. They transformed the mundane into the magical in the heat and torpor of August on Long Island and I saw the pond as I'd never before seen it.