BirdingNZ.net

Any suggestions as to what the small wader is? Immature or non-breeding white winged black tern perhaps?

Hi Ken,
Juv. Black fronted Tern.

Hi Ken,

do you happen to have more photos of this bird? Was this photo taken recently?

Cheers
Matthias

When this photo were photographed ??? It is midwinter now and the juvenile Black-fronted terns had grey mantles and scapulars now.

The Caspian tern were adult in new breeding plumage while Red-billed gull were in 1st spring plumage, less than 11 month old.

This may mean the juvenile tern were either a Asian Little tern or White-winged Black tern in juvenile that had migrated with parent birds, but ended up overshot and landed in NZ in austral springtime.

1st winter black fronted tern for me.

Oooops, apologies all, my bad, posting sent hurriedly while on the road and having only intermittent internet access and a couple of attempts at sending the posting; a crucial piece of location info was left off the uploaded post. Shot was taken last week, Tuesday June 19th at a place called Cuttaburra Crossing, about halfway between Bedourie and Birdsville in South West Queensland. In the middle of the arid outback we (a group of 12 experienced birders) came across a small water course with a half dozen Caspian Terns, Whiskered Terns, a Gull Billed Tern, and number of gulls and the small tern in the shot. Best guess was Immature white winged black but since the location as way out of range and probably a thousand kms plus from any coast, nobody was keen on a definite ID; hence my post. Incidently, in the sky above us at the same time was a flock of upwards of 50 letter-winged kites. Even the experienced Aussie outback birders had never seen a group like that before. Again, apologies for any confusion.

Never mind...Few juvenile Black-fronted tern and White-fronted tern do keep its juvenile plumage into 10th and 11th month-old of age, in austral springtime.

I had seen and photographed one juvenile Red-billed gull on 3rd February 2003, it had remained its complete juvenile plumage for few more weeks, while most juvenile Red-Billed gulls started to moult its juvenile plumage at 6 weeks old, as soon as outer juvenile primaries are fully grown, and had grey mantle & scapulars on 3/2/03.
During last 30 past years I had never seen a complete juvenile Red-billed gull before until 3/2/03. Most juvenile Red-billed gulls I had seen on early January are in moult, with several missing juvenile mantle & scapular feathers.

Both first winter gulls and terns have variable plumages and post-juvenile moult durations, with some gulls in complete first winter plumages, and few gulls in complete juvenile plumages, with most gulls have mixtures of first winter plumages and juvenile plumages, during midwinter.


Juvenile Red-billed gull in complete juvenile plumage, 3/2/03

Juvenile Red-billed gull in complete juvenile plumage, 3/2/03

That makes my suggestion somewhat silly then doesn’t it! My pick is juvenile whiskered tern, wings lacking black in the primaries and the head is too pale and colour too extensive for a juvenile Wwbt for my eyes. Could be wrong however.

Davidthomas wrote:That makes my suggestion somewhat silly then doesn’t it! My pick is juvenile whiskered tern, wings lacking black in the primaries and the head is too pale and colour too extensive for a juvenile Wwbt for my eyes. Could be wrong however.

After some research, I'd agree with juv Whiskered Tern