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Is that a Gull-billed Tern (Australian) or an Australian Tern (Gull-billed)?

By Birding-Aus, on July 19th, 2020

Isn’t the “Australian” in “Australian Tern” and “Australian Gull-billed Tern” simply to denote that it is a breeding endemic (with one recent breeding record in NZ noted)? Otherwise we could call Australian Pelican the “Largely Australian Pelican” under that logic? Australian Pied Oystercatcher and other “Australian…” species are recorded in nearby Indonesia etc. It’s the missing “Gull-billed” part of it that makes “Australian Tern” such an ambiguous name. It is unfortunate and to overseas birders it might suggest a type of ‘commic tern’ that breeds here. 

 

BirdLife went for “Australian Gull-billed Tern” (G. macrotarsa) for our breeding endemic; the largest of the world’s Gull-billed Terns and “Common Gull-billed Tern” (G. nilotica) for the other five taxa of Gull-billeds elsewhere in the world. The latter not only occurs in northern Australia; we also get them reasonably regularly in the southern states. I don’t think they have been recorded in Tassie but surely it would be expected to be found there eventually. When people refer to them as “affinis” or “Asian Gull-billed Terns”, that’s still only a reference to / name of the subspecies of G. nilotica we get in Australia.

 

I personally do not think we should have to “get used to Australian Tern” at all. I think it is a most unfortunate name.

Mick 

On Jul 19, 2020, at 18:45, Greg & Val Clancy <gclancy@tpg.com.au&gt; wrote:

The ‘Northern’ or ‘Common’ Gull-billed Tern also occurs occasionally in NSW.  I have seen and photographed it in the Clarence Valley, north coast NSW.

 

Greg Clancy

 

From: Birding-Aus <birding-aus-bounces@birding-aus.org&gt; On Behalf Of Geoffrey Dabb
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2020 4:32 PM
To: birding-aus@birding-aus.org
Subject: [Birding-Aus] Is that a Gull-billed Tern (Australian) or an Australian Tern (Gull-billed)?

 

This moderately common inhabitant of our   fields and beaches shows the problems we have with names.   First, some authorities regard it as one with a widespread northern species, some split it off as a different species, Gelochelidon macrotarsa. Gould thought it was different, ‘a fine species of Tern, which proved to be new to science’, and called it the Long-legged Tern.

 

If a separate species it needs a new English name (and a Spanish one, and one in Indonesian, Japanese, Chinese etc.)  IOC Worldbirdnames has given English-speakers ‘Australian Tern’, something that might come as a surprise to Australians, who learn they have their very own tern, along with China, Peru and Caspia.  ‘Our tern’, however, is shared with Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, and to a small extent, with New Zealand.

Another name, which at the moment might, by a narrow margin, be called the more usual, is ‘Australian Gull-billed Tern’.  This indicates that we have a ‘Gull-billed Tern’ which happens to be (largely) Australian. ‘Largely Australian Gull-billed Tern’, while accurate, would be too long.

 

The IOC people are reluctant to use ‘Australian Gull-billed Tern’ because they would then need to add an adjective (for example ‘Northern’ or ‘Common’) to the widespread northern species, long known as ‘Gull-billed Tern’.  This, on a balancing of relative convenience to those affected, they do not wish to do. There can be only one Gull-billed Tern, they say.  The objection to ‘Australian Tern’ on ground of novelty is met by the reassurance ‘People will get used to it’.  Perhaps.  Given enough time, people will get used to anything.   So much for the possibility of worldwide agreement on English names.

 

As it happens the REAL Gull-billed Tern also occurs on the coasts of north-western Australia, sometimes outnumbering the Australian G-b T.

 

 

Geoffrey Dabb

 

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