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Went for a walk around the Brooklands Lagoon this afternoon. First I didn't know what this was due to it's body size similar to a spoonbill I thought. Turns out it is a very large heavily built tern, silver-grey above and white below, with dark wing tips, a large pointed bright red bill with dark tip, a relatively short slightly forked tail. Adults have black legs and a black cap to below the eye during the breeding season; the cap becomes speckled with white and less sharply delineated at other times of the year.
Adult Common Tern with a just caught fish - New York
Photograph captured with a Canon EOS 1DXII camera paired with a Canon 600mm f/4 IS II lens and 1.4x extender, at 840mm
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Houlover park
Rare bird for Florida .
Forester's Tern
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Long Lake NWR, North Dakota
A lifer. Taken with heavy cloud cover and wind gusts up to 46 mph. Challenging but worth it.
Cool facts from "all about birds":
Arctic Terns migrate from pole to pole; birds in North America travel around 25,000 miles each year.
Downy Arctic Tern hatchlings come in two colors: gray or brown. And chicks from the same nest aren't always the same color.
Arctic Terns can live for decades, but they usually do not start breeding until they are 3 or 4 years old.
The oldest recorded Arctic Tern was at least 34 years old, when it was recaptured and rereleased during a banding operation in Maine. This bird flew at least 850,000 miles, or 3 and a half times to the moon and back!!!
When molting its wing feathers during the winter, the Arctic Tern rarely flies; instead it spends much of its time resting on small blocks of ice at the edge of the pack ice.
France; Brenne 3/5/21. A bit distant but they usually are here. Still a scarce summer visitor to the Brenne
I should have been shooting video as this Tern put on a display of flying agility while it searched the water below. Can't remember if it was successful this particular time, but the presentation of aerial acrobatics was fabulous.
Caspian Tern 9529
Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) flying along the shore of Reed Lake in search of small minnows. The overcast conditions resulted in low light and difficult shooting conditions. Reed Lake is located along the Trans Canada Highway in southern Saskatchewan east of Swift Current, Canada.
21 May, 2016.
Slide # GWB_20160521_0920.CR2
Use of this image on websites, blogs or other media without explicit permission is not permitted.
© Gerard W. Beyersbergen - All Rights Reserved Worldwide In Perpetuity - No Unauthorized Use.
The "American" Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus) is wholly confined to the Americas since 2021 when the African Crested (Royal) Tern (T. albididorsalis) was elevated from a subspecies of Royal Tern to a full species. Royal Tern is found on both coasts of North America but generally in the warmer, southern parts, and it has occurred as a vagrant in Britain a few times. It is the second largest species of Tern in the world after Caspian Tern. The wingspan is up to 145cm and they weigh up to 450g, which is about three times heavier than a Common Tern. I photographed this adult in breeding plumage at San Ignacio lagoon where they breed, and occur year-round.
A Tern from the Farne Islands looking after it's young that was right beside the side walk!!!
had to wear a hat!! Or you knew about it!! but even then you felt that beak through the hat!
369) Caspian Tern
Caspian Tern, Hydroprogne caspia, Camar Besar
This is the world largest tern, with a subcosmopolitan but scattered distribution. They feed mainly on fish, which they dive for, hovering high over the water and then plunging. They also occasionally eat large insects, the young and eggs of other birds and rodents. They may fly up to 60 km from the breeding colony to catch fish; they often fish on freshwater lakes as well as at sea. A winter visitor here in Malaysia.
Relaxing on the sand - this tern was with a flock of 50 or so terns and also a bunch of different gulls - the Skimmers set up their own resting area in a near-by group. They all become very comfortable if you spend some time with them.
From Cornell -
A sleek seabird of warm saltwater coasts, the Royal Tern lives up to its regal name with a tangerine-colored bill and ragged, ink-black crest against crisp white plumage. Royal Terns fly gracefully and slowly along coastlines, diving for small fish, which they capture with a swift strike of their daggerlike bills. They are social birds, gathering between fishing expeditions on undisturbed beaches and nesting in dense, boisterous colonies.
A shot of a Whiskered Tern in flight. I have seen them over many of the water bodies we have here but never were they this close before. The light was poor and the lens was the Sigma 150-600 which does not perform too well in low light. Also my old 550D with its 9 focus points and poor 'fps' is not the best at this kind of job. But I did get a few shots, the best of the lot being this one.
This bird has a number of geographical races, differing mainly in size and minor plumage details, the tropical forms being resident.
Where I live Caspian terns are "the tern." In the Southeast, royal terns seemed to be the prominent tern. They also have a lot of Sandwich terns and I'll see if I have any good pictures of those and probably post one eventually.
Cumberland Island, GA
The Royal Tern never asked for a title. One day he was just another seabird with a fish in his beak; the next, some human naturalist had declared him “royal.”
It sounded flattering at first, but it came with expectations. Gulls now bowed mockingly whenever he landed, and pelicans inquired whether he had a flag. Worst of all, the wind would ruffle his crown feathers into a crest more clown than king.
“Royalty,” he muttered, shaking out another fish scale, “is a terrible thing to uphold when your throne is a piling and your scepter smells like mackerel.”
Moral: Titles impress humans more than they help birds.
524) Black Naped Tern
Black Naped Tern, Sterna sumatrana, Camar Sumatera
Oceanic tern which can be found in open seas, coasts and islets of South East Asia. Rarely found on shore.
Black Tern (Chlidonias niger) feeding on aerial prey such as the dragonfly or Darner in its beak over a small marsh north of Opal, Alberta, Canada.
Given the speed that these terns fly I was fortunate to get a flight shot although slightly soft in focus.
29 May, 2017.
Slide # GWB_20170529_9454.CR2
Use of this image on websites, blogs or other media without explicit permission is not permitted.
© Gerard W. Beyersbergen - All Rights Reserved Worldwide In Perpetuity - No Unauthorized Use.
The large-billed tern is native to much of South America, especially east of the Andes. With a wingspan of up to 4 feet and a distinctive long, down-curved bill, it is perfectly adapted for hunting fish which it catches with precision dives.
Arctic Tern family on the Isle of May.
If you look closely you will see the wee chick on the right of the image.
There was this clever tern at Brighton Baths - instead of flying and diving, as most of the terns do, it was sitting on a fence surrounding the swimming area and watching... I was watching too. This is the result. Not as good as www.flickr.com/photos/birdsaspoetry/ in showing the beautiful bird, but at least I knew what was on the menu ;-)
With its long tail streamers and general shape the Arctic tern deserves the local name of 'sea swallow'. Appearing white with a black cap, it is largely coastal although it can be seen inland on migration. It depends on a healthy marine environment and some colonies have been affected by fish shortages. Arctic terns are the ultimate long distance migrants - summer visitors to the UK and winter visitors to the Antarctic.
Read more at www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a...