White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Bennyboy87654 · Post by **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.

George Hobson · Post by **George Hobson** » Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:27 pm

Isn't that a White-winged Black Tern?

Oscar Thomas · Post by **Oscar Thomas** » Sat Dec 02, 2017 2:28 pm

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

Michael Szabo · Post by **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".

andrewcrossland · Post by **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.

David Riddell · Post by **David Riddell** » Mon Dec 04, 2017 8:00 am

Looks like it's carrying nesting material?

Colin Miskelly · Post by **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).

Cheers
Coliin

David Riddell · Post by **David Riddell** » Mon Dec 04, 2017 10:21 am

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

Clinton9 · Post by **Clinton9** » Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:20 pm

Carrying a dragonfly to its chick ???

Post by **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.
Cheers

White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Re: Black Fronted Tern Colour Morph

Re: Black Fronted Tern Colour Morph

Re: Black Fronted Tern Colour Morph

Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo

Re: White Winged Black Tern at Cass River, Tekapo