White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

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Bennyboy87654
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White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Postby Bennyboy87654 » Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:13 pm

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.
DSC_5919.JPG
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Last edited by Bennyboy87654 on Sat Dec 02, 2017 4:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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George Hobson
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Re: Black Fronted Tern Colour Morph

Postby George Hobson » Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:27 pm

Isn't that a White-winged Black Tern?
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Oscar Thomas
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Re: Black Fronted Tern Colour Morph

Postby Oscar Thomas » Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:28 pm

Yep. Amazingly photo Ben, they aren’t often seen, and certainly not in breeding plumage.
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Michael Szabo
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Re: Black Fronted Tern Colour Morph

Postby Michael Szabo » Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:34 pm

It would be good to amend the title of this thread to "White-winged Black Tern, Cass River".
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andrewcrossland
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Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Postby andrewcrossland » Sat Dec 02, 2017 9:27 pm

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.
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David Riddell
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Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Postby David Riddell » Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:00 am

Looks like it's carrying nesting material?
White-winged black tern detail.jpg
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Colin Miskelly
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Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Postby Colin Miskelly » Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:16 am

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).

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Coliin
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David Riddell
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Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Postby David Riddell » Mon Dec 04, 2017 10:21 am

Yes Colin, now that I look again you might be right.
Clinton9
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Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Postby Clinton9 » Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:20 pm

Carrying a dragonfly to its chick ???
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sav
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Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Postby sav » Mon Dec 11, 2017 5:28 pm

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.
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Sav Saville
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