Chlidonias niger
Gulls, Terns, Skimmers (Laridae)
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CHLNIG
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The Black Tern is a small tern averaging 25 centimeters in length in adulthood. It has a large breeding range of 1,430,000 square kilometers that includes a large area of Canada, California and the northern United States, various sites in Europe, the Caucus region, western Russia, and Kazakhstan. This species breeds on freshwater marshes and lakes, and winters in coastal waters from Mexico south to Peru and the Guyanas, the western coast of Africa, and along the Nile River. The Black Tern feeds mostly on fish and flying insects. This species is threatened by pollution, and changes in water quality on its breeding grounds. It has declined for several decades but still has a population that is large and stable enough to warrant a conservation rating of Least Concern.
Black Tern: This small tern has a black head, bill and underparts. The back, wings and tail are silver-gray, and the vent is white. The legs and feet are dark red but may appear black. It has a buoyant, direct flight with deep rapid wing beats. It hovers for insects in an uneven foraging flight. It plunge dives on occasion. The sexes appear similar.
Range and Habitat
Black Tern: Found from central eastern Alaska, central Manitoba and Ontario south to northern California, Colorado, northern Missouri and Tennessee, also to the lakeshores of northern Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Winters spent from Surinam to Peru and Chile. Preferred habitats include lakes, ponds, marshes, and coastal areas.
Black Tern SONGS AND CALLS
Black Tern A1
"Kip" and "Kyew" calls from a large flock on a mudflat.
Shrill warning calls from a pair in flight near their nest.
Similar Sounding
Voice Text
"Ka-sheek", "kik-kik-kik"
The Black Tern is very social. It breeds in loose colonies and usually forages, roosts, and migrates in flocks of a few to more than 100 birds, occasionally up to tens of thousands.
The male performs a display flight where he carries a small fish or dragonfly in view of potential mates. A female that accepts the invitation follows him to a perch where he feeds her the prize.
They are semi-colonial nesters and only defend a small territory a few feet around the nest. Nests may be as close as 1 yard apart, but more typically they are 15 to 60 feet apart, in clusters of 10 to 50 nests.
A group of terns are collectively known as a "ternery" or a "U" of terns.
SIMILAR BIRDS
White-winged Tern
RANGE MAP NORTH AMERICA
About this North America Map
This map shows how this species is distributed across North America.
RANGE MAP HAWAII
About this Hawaii Map
This map shows how this species is distributed across the Hawaiian island.
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
The nineteen families in the taxonomic order CHARADRIIFORMES (pronounced kah-RAH-dree-ih-FOR-meez) include waterbirds such as auks, sandpipers, gulls, and terns.
FAMILY TAXONOMY
Of worldwide distribution (including the polar regions), the family Laridae (pronounced LAR-uh-dee) encompasses one hundred and two species of gulls, terns, and skimmers in twenty-three genera.
In North America there are fifty-eight species of Laridae (also known as Larids) in twenty-two genera. Members of this bird family include the graceful, aerodynamic terns, hefty gulls, and the clown-like Black Skimmer.
Larids are known for their affinity for and adaptations to aquatic habitats, the gulls being especially well known for being highly effective scavengers of beaches. Species such as Ring-billed Gulls are also known for having become adapted to habitats made by people that provide similar foraging opportunities such as parking lots and landfills.
Larids are web-footed, long-winged birds that range in size from the small and slender, long-tailed terns to the large and hefty short-tailed gulls. In synch with their slender aerodynamic appearance, terns have dagger-like sharp bills, the gulls shorter, stronger bills with a slightly hooked tip to match their tough demeanor, and the Black Skimmer a unique bill with the lower half longer that the upper half.
Adult gulls and terns are for the most part pale-colored birds plumaged in gray, white, and black with dark plumages predominating in the Black Tern and noddy species. Other colors are limited to orange and yellow (in the bills and feet) and pink hues in the plumage of the Ross's Gull and Roseate Tern. Immature gulls of most species cycle through years of a seemingly bewildering number of gray, brown, and black streaked plumages.
GEOGRAPHIC HABITAT
Larids are found near fresh and salt water throughout North America but are most common near large bodies of water. Even marsh nesters such as the Franklin's Gull and Black Tern spend the winter in coastal areas.
Gulls, terns, and the Black Skimmer are all migratory with the larger gulls migrating short distances to open water and the Sabine's Gull, terns, and Black Skimmer undertaking incredible journeys to the seas and rivers of the southern hemisphere.
Larids are very social, highly vocal birds that mostly nest in colonies. Terns dive for fish; gulls pick food off the surface of the water and scavenge beaches for carrion and small animals, The Black Skimmer "skims" the surface of coastal waters, snapping its bill shut when it feels a fish touch its long, lower mandible.
While many Larid species have benefited from the presence of people, two tern and one gull species have become endangered. Least and Roseate Terns are threatened by destruction and disturbance of their nest sites on sand bars and beaches while the sharp decline of the Ivory Gull could be related to pollution and global warming.
The Arctic Tern migrates more that twenty thousand miles each year on a round trip journey between the Arctic and Antarctic. Populations that breed in the northeast actually do a circle of the Atlantic by flying to northern Europe, heading south along the African coast to Antarctica and then following the American coastlines north.
Bird Term Glossary
Yury Lisyak
HELP ME IDENTIFY A BIRD
Wintertime Tern Help
posted on January 18, 2022 03:11 AM
Short-billed Gull?
posted on January 16, 2022 09:18 PM
white-winged scoter
Is this a red-shouldered hawk?
Barrow's or common goldeneye?
Yup, more juncos
falcon?
Another Florida Bird Call
Clark's or Western Grebe
PLEASE ID - THANK YOU
Harlan's or dark morph RTHA?
Sprague's Pipit? - Attwater Prairie Chicken NWR, Cat Spring, TX - 1/16/22
Underparts X
Belly, undertail coverts, chest, flanks, and foreneck.
Vent X
Birds do not have two separate cavities for excrement and reproduction like humans do. In birds, there is one single entrance/exit that suits both functions called the vent, cloaca or anus.
Lower mandible X
The lower part of the bill.