Overview

Black Tern: A small waterbird that is black with silvery-grey wings, back, and tail, and a white vent. It has a rather short, sharp, pointed bill, and short, slightly forked tail. The long, pointed wings are used for rapid, graceful flight, as well as hovering over marshes.

Black Tern: Formerly a breeding resident, now a spring and autumn passage visitor to the UK and Ireland. European race summers in Europe and western Asian and winters on the west coast of Africa. This wetland tern is most often seen at lakes, reservoirs, coastal lagoons, and estuaries in England. The North American subspecies is a rare vagrant to the UK and Ireland.

Jean Roche Sound

Black Tern 4

• Title: Black Tern 4
• Description: Flight calls
• Recordist: Jean Roche
• Date Imported: "February 7, 2011"
• Location: uk

Voice Text

"ka-sheek", "kik-kik-kik"

• The Black Tern is very social. It breeds in loose colonies and usually forages, roosts,and migrates in flocks of a few to more than 100 birds, occasionally up to tens of thousands.
• The male performs a display flight where he carries a small fish or dragonfly in view of potential mates. A female that accepts the invitation follows him to a perch where he feeds her the prize.
• Unlike the "white" Sterna terns, they do not dive for fish. Instead, they forage picking up items near the water's surface or catching flying insects.
• A group of terns are collectively known as a "U" or a "ternery" of terns.

• Arctic Tern
• Common Tern
• Leach's Petrel
• Roseate Tern
• Sandwich Tern
• Storm Petrel
• Little Tern

Terns (Sternidae)

ORDER

The nineteen families in the taxonomic order CHARADRIIFORMES (pronounced kah-RAH-dree-ih-FOR-meez) include waterbirds such as oystercatchers, avocets, gulls, and terns.

FAMILY TAXONOMY

Distributed worldwide (including the polar regions), the family Sternidae (pronounced STURN-uh-dee) encompasses forty-four species of terns in nine genera (IOC World Bird List, version 2.3). It should be noted that terns were, until recently, included in the same family as gulls (the Laridae).

EUROPE

In Europe twenty-two species of Sternidae in eight genera have occurred. Members of this bird family include the “marsh terns" of the Chlidonias genus (Black, White-winged Black, and Whiskered Terns), and the Arctic Tern.

KNOWN FOR

Members of the Sternidae are known for their elegant appearance, graceful flight, and association with aquatic habitats.

PHYSICAL

Terns are web-footed birds with long, rather slim wings. Most species have thin, dagger-like bills (Gull-billed and Caspian Terns being notable exceptions), and notched or forked tails. They range in size from that of a Starling (the Little Tern) to a bit larger than a Common Gull (the Caspian Tern).

COLORATION

Adult terns are mostly pale-coloured birds plumaged in grey and white with black on the crown and in the wingtips. Marsh terns and noddies are generally darker in coloration. Other colours are limited to red and yellow (in the bills and feet) and rose-coloured hues in the plumage of the Roseate Tern.

GEOGRAPHIC HABITAT

The Sternidae occur near fresh and salt water throughout Europe but are most common near large bodies of water.

MIGRATION

European tern species are highly migratory and for the most part spend the winter in subtropical and tropical coasts and waterways of Africa.

HABITS

The Sternidae are social, rather vocal birds that nest in colonies in marshes, on isolated beaches, and rocky islets. Most species forage for small fish by diving into the water although some terns will also hawk insects from the air during flight.

CONSERVATION

Several tern species have declined due to disturbance at their nesting colonies, pollution of waterways, and destruction of their marsh, riverine, and coastal habitats. Populations of the Little Tern (and the related Least Tern of North America) have been especially hard hit by these factors and have thus become species of conservation concern in many areas.

INTERESTING FACTS

The Arctic Tern migrates more than twenty thousand miles each year on a round trip journey between the Arctic and Antarctic. Some populations of this species actually do a circle of the Atlantic by flying to northern Europe, heading south along the African coast to Antarctica and then following the American coastlines north.

Author

Artist

Yury Lisyak