Hi All
I recently posted quite a long list of bird observations on Birdpedia. Unfortunately I was a bit premature with one of these observations: my listing of 3 immature White-winged Black Tern at Rush Lagoon on KI is incorrect. It should have been immature Whiskered Terns. I have never seen immature marsh terns on KI until now and was mislead by the dark ‘ear-muff’ head markings; an apparently white rump band on one of the birds; pale band across upper median and greater wing coverts and that the three immature birds kept to themselves, foraged differently to 15 br plumaged Whiskered Terns that were present and were swooped on by adult Whiskered Terns on several occasions. However, yesterday I went back and was able to study the birds at much closer range (weather was fine and calm and not blowing a howling SE) and I had all of these birds fluttering close about me as I stood out in the middle of the shallow lagoon! This time the young birds were in close association with the adult birds. They mimicked them in every way: feeding behaviour, size, call (yes, heard one call-that was a clincher!); white rump band seemed to have been an abherration (it had disappeared!!); ‘ear-muff’ markings were lower part of incomplete black cap. Anyway, enough of that. The long and short of it is I jumped to a wrong conclusion and I sincerely apologise for that. I managed to take a couple of poor shots of these birds yesterday and have posted them on my flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisbaxterki/ for anybody who wants to look at them to confirm my ID. No body else has observed these birds but me and so it has not been possible to get a second opinion – the pics I put on Flickr will allow this to happen. I appreciate any feedback and comments.
Kind Regards
Chris Baxter
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You were right the first time! Definitely White-winged Blacks in your photos.
Cheers, Chris.
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Hi Chris, I don’t think you did “jump to the wrong conclusion” – to me, those photos show White-winged Black Terns, dark ‘earmuff’ pattern looks much better for them than Whiskered to my knowledge. It’s not unusual for WWBs to feed in mixed flocks with Whiskereds Cheers,John
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