ML507910581

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Flew over me, looked smaller than royal in the field, like almost sandwich tern sized, whitish overall. Was flying in from the ocean along the barnegat light jetty heading west towards the bay and maybe the great sedge islands. Was seen at 11:30am, about an hour before the rain started. High tide was around 10:20 am, and as the tide was coming in, several large flocks of birds were feeding at the end of the jetty. Bob and I were camped out in the shelter of the dunes because the south west wind was coming in pretty strong. The most North East corner of the park in the dunes at the end before the beach. Looking out towards the Jetty and Osprey tower to the North of us,. Snapped a few photos and initially marked it down as a Royal tern, even though I told Bob at the time that it looked like an Elegant tern. In a rush posted a photo of the bird to get some feedback on my checklist and Jeff Ellerbusch texted me telling me he didn't think it was a Royal tern. After sending him a few more photos and posting the rest of the photos online I changed the listing from Royal tern to Elegant tern based on Jeff's ID. In the photos you can see the thin orange bill, and the Thalasseus tern type.

Technical information

Dimensions

2000 pixels x 1500 pixels

Original file size

502.21 KB