Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Sandwich tern
The Sandwich tern (Thalasseus sandvicensis) is a tern in the family Laridae. It is very closely related to the lesser crested tern (T. bengalensis), Chinese crested tern (T. bernsteini), Cabot's tern (T. acuflavidus), and elegant tern (T. elegans) and has been known to interbreed with both elegant and lesser crested terns. It breeds in the Palearctic from Europe to the Caspian Sea, and winters in the Mediterranean and on the coasts of Africa, India, and Sri Lanka.
The Sandwich tern is a medium-large tern with pale silvery-grey upperparts, white underparts, a yellow-tipped black bill, and a shaggy black crest which becomes less extensive in winter with a white crown. Young birds bear grey and blackish scalloped plumage on their backs and wings. It is a vocal bird. It nests in a ground scrape and lays one to three eggs.
Like all Thalasseus terns, the Sandwich tern feeds by plunge-diving for fish, usually in marine environments, and the offering of fish by the male to the female is part of the courtship display.
The terns are small to medium-sized seabirds, gull-like in appearance, but usually with a more delicate, lighter build and shorter, weaker legs. They have long, pointed wings, which gives them a fast buoyant flight, and often a deeply forked tail. Most species are grey above and white below, and have a black cap, which is reduced or flecked with white in the winter.
The Sandwich tern was originally described by ornithologist John Latham in 1787 as Sterna sandvicensis but was moved to its current genus, Thalasseus (Boie, 1822), following mitochondrial DNA studies, which confirmed that the three types of head pattern (white crown, black cap, and black cap with a white blaze on the forehead) found among the terns corresponded to distinct clades. The current genus name is derived from Greek Thalassa, "sea", and sandvicensis, like the English name, refers to Sandwich, Kent, Latham's type locality.
This bird has no subspecies. Two former subspecies are now treated as a separate species, Cabot's tern (T. acuflavidus); this breeds on the Atlantic coasts of North America, northern and eastern South America, and has wandered to Western Europe. Cabot's tern was separated from Sandwich tern as it is genetically closer to elegant tern than to Sandwich tern.
This is a medium-large tern, 36–41 cm (14–16 in) long with an 95–105 cm (37–41 in) wingspan, which is unlikely to be confused within most of its range. The weight ranges from 200–300 g; males average slightly heavier than females, but with much overlap.
The thin, sharp bill is black with a yellow tip. Its short legs are black. Its upper wings are pale grey and its underparts white, and this tern looks very pale in flight, although the primary flight feathers darken during the summer. In autumn and winter, the adult's forehead becomes extensively white after the post-breeding moult in late summer (July-August); the black forehead is regained in the spring moult in February to March. Juvenile Sandwich terns have dark tips to their tails, an all-blackish bill (lacking the yellow tip, but sometimes yellowish at the base) and a scaly appearance on their back and wings, like juvenile roseate terns but with less black on the crown.
Hub AI
Sandwich tern AI simulator
(@Sandwich tern_simulator)
Sandwich tern
The Sandwich tern (Thalasseus sandvicensis) is a tern in the family Laridae. It is very closely related to the lesser crested tern (T. bengalensis), Chinese crested tern (T. bernsteini), Cabot's tern (T. acuflavidus), and elegant tern (T. elegans) and has been known to interbreed with both elegant and lesser crested terns. It breeds in the Palearctic from Europe to the Caspian Sea, and winters in the Mediterranean and on the coasts of Africa, India, and Sri Lanka.
The Sandwich tern is a medium-large tern with pale silvery-grey upperparts, white underparts, a yellow-tipped black bill, and a shaggy black crest which becomes less extensive in winter with a white crown. Young birds bear grey and blackish scalloped plumage on their backs and wings. It is a vocal bird. It nests in a ground scrape and lays one to three eggs.
Like all Thalasseus terns, the Sandwich tern feeds by plunge-diving for fish, usually in marine environments, and the offering of fish by the male to the female is part of the courtship display.
The terns are small to medium-sized seabirds, gull-like in appearance, but usually with a more delicate, lighter build and shorter, weaker legs. They have long, pointed wings, which gives them a fast buoyant flight, and often a deeply forked tail. Most species are grey above and white below, and have a black cap, which is reduced or flecked with white in the winter.
The Sandwich tern was originally described by ornithologist John Latham in 1787 as Sterna sandvicensis but was moved to its current genus, Thalasseus (Boie, 1822), following mitochondrial DNA studies, which confirmed that the three types of head pattern (white crown, black cap, and black cap with a white blaze on the forehead) found among the terns corresponded to distinct clades. The current genus name is derived from Greek Thalassa, "sea", and sandvicensis, like the English name, refers to Sandwich, Kent, Latham's type locality.
This bird has no subspecies. Two former subspecies are now treated as a separate species, Cabot's tern (T. acuflavidus); this breeds on the Atlantic coasts of North America, northern and eastern South America, and has wandered to Western Europe. Cabot's tern was separated from Sandwich tern as it is genetically closer to elegant tern than to Sandwich tern.
This is a medium-large tern, 36–41 cm (14–16 in) long with an 95–105 cm (37–41 in) wingspan, which is unlikely to be confused within most of its range. The weight ranges from 200–300 g; males average slightly heavier than females, but with much overlap.
The thin, sharp bill is black with a yellow tip. Its short legs are black. Its upper wings are pale grey and its underparts white, and this tern looks very pale in flight, although the primary flight feathers darken during the summer. In autumn and winter, the adult's forehead becomes extensively white after the post-breeding moult in late summer (July-August); the black forehead is regained in the spring moult in February to March. Juvenile Sandwich terns have dark tips to their tails, an all-blackish bill (lacking the yellow tip, but sometimes yellowish at the base) and a scaly appearance on their back and wings, like juvenile roseate terns but with less black on the crown.