ML66580241

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Tags

Multiple species

Observation details

Photos from Matt Victoria. Was alone for first hour. Eventually three Forster's Terns flew in and landed in the middle of the pond. It did not join them until we eventually flushed it while photographing it. I believe this is an adult COTE just entering its pre-basic molt. The FOTE provided a useful comparison. It was slightly smaller than FOTE. Each of the FOTE (and another I saw later today at Mittry) had orange bills with black tips. This bird had a reddish bill that appeared thinner. It did not have a clean black tip but rather just seemed to get darker toward the tip. The FOTE had all molted their caps into white/gray, giving them an earnmuff look This tern had a white forehead and an otherwise black cap that extended thickly into and down the nape. This tern appeared to have gray underparts. Its mantle was gray all of the way through in flight, not two-toned patterned as one would see in a FOTE. Thin darkening in the carpal could be seen in the outer forewing edge past the elbow when the wings were folded. For awhile it seemed like there was a thick dark patch across the top of the wing when it was folded, but I think this was only ruffled feathers and shadow. the wing vs tail projection was difficult to assess, depending on the angle of the bird. But it generally seemed like the tail and pl projections reached roughly the same point behind the bird.

Technical information

Dimensions

1111 pixels x 891 pixels

Original file size

244.37 KB