BirdingNZ.net

Was at the Cass river(flows into Lake Tekapo) today and saw a tern that looked identical to the other Black Fronted Terns except that is was mostly black.

Isn't that a White-winged Black Tern?

Yep. Amazingly photo Ben, they aren’t often seen, and certainly not in breeding plumage.

It would be good to amend the title of this thread to "White-winged Black Tern, Cass River".

They are probably annual in the area but overlooked in non breeding plumage. There is one previous breeding record in thd MacKenzie country of this our rarest breeding tern.

Looks like it's carrying nesting material?

Hi David

I looked at that also, but interpreted it as a Uropetala dragonfly - which would be a sufficiently large prey item that the bird would probably need to land to consume it (i.e. it could not be interpreted as a bird carrying food to a chick, without more information on how the bird was behaving).

Cheers
Coliin

Yes Colin, now that I look again you might be right.

Carrying a dragonfly to its chick ???

Hi all
The WWBT was present yesterday around midday.
It was in the middle of a huge Black-fronted Tern colony, which appeared to be really successful with lots of juvenile birds there.
Although it is possible that there is a pair of WWBTs, we only saw one individual.
Cheers