The white-winged tern, or white-winged black tern (''Chlidonias leucopterus'' or ''Chlidonias leucoptera''), is a species of
tern
Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated as a subgroup of the family Laridae which includes gulls and skimmers and consists of e ...
in the family
Laridae
Laridae is a family of seabirds in the order Charadriiformes that includes the gulls, terns, skimmers and kittiwakes. It includes around 100 species arranged into 22 genera. They are an adaptable group of mostly aerial birds found worldwide.
T ...
. It is a small species generally found in or near bodies of fresh water across much of the world, including Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The genus name is from
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
''khelidonios'', "swallow-like", from ''khelidon'', "
swallow
The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The ...
".
The name 'white-winged tern' is the standard in most English-speaking countries; in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, this name is also the one used by the formal ornithological recording authorities, but the older alternative 'white-winged black tern' is still frequent in popular use.
Description
Adult birds in summer have short red legs and a short black bill (small and stubby, measuring 22–25 mm from the feathers, decidedly shorter than the head), a black neck (often with a pale gray back) and belly, very dark grey back, with a white rump and light grey (almost white) tail, which often looks 'square' in juveniles. The face is tinged yellowish. The wings, as the name implies, are mainly white. The inner wing is grayish with brown-tipped coverts. In non-breeding plumage, most of the black is replaced by white or pale grey, though a few blackish feathers may be retained, admixed with white underparts. A good deal of black shows in the underwing-coverts. The head is black, with a white forehead. The crown is blackish-brown, flecked with white, and the hindcrown is blackish with a certain amount of white flecking. These white markings are pronounced in the winter adult. There is a dark triangular patch forward of the eye. The collar is fairly broad and white. In juveniles and moulting adults, the rump is pale gray, becoming grey in both phases late in the year. The clear white collar and rump isolate the mantle as a dark brown 'saddle'. The mantle feathers have narrow paler brown tips, as have the tertials and scapulars.
Hybridisation with black tern
Hybridisation between this species and
black tern
The black tern (''Chlidonias niger'') is a small tern generally found in or near inland water in Europe, Western Asia and North America. As its name suggests, it has predominantly dark plumage. In some lights it can appear blue in the breeding se ...
has been recorded from Sweden and the Netherlands. Two juvenile birds at
Chew Valley Lake
Chew Valley Lake () is a reservoir in Chew Stoke, Chew Valley, Somerset, England. It is the fifth-largest artificial lake in the United Kingdom, with an area of . The lake, created in the early 1950s, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956. ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, in September 1978 and September 1981, were also believed to be hybrids; they showed mixed characters of the two species, specifically a combination of a dark mantle (a feature of white-winged black) with dark patches on the breast-side (a feature of black tern, not shown by white-winged black).
Distribution and habitat
Their breeding habitat is freshwater marshes across from southeast
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
to Central
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
and the
Russian Far East
The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admini ...
. They usually nest either on floating vegetation in a marsh or on the ground very close to water, laying 2-4 eggs in a nest built of small reed stems and other vegetation. In winter, they
migrate to
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, southern Asia and
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. It is a scarce vagrant in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
, mainly on the Atlantic coast, but a few records on the Pacific coast and inland in the Great Lakes area.
Behaviour
Like the other "marsh" terns (''Chlidonias''), and unlike the "white" (''Sterna'') terns, these birds do not dive for fish, but fly slowly over the water to surface-pick items and catch insects in flight. They mainly eat insects and small fish. In flight, the wing-beats are shallow and leisurely.
The white-winged tern is one of the species to which the ''Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds'' (
AEWA
The Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds, or African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) is an independent international treaty developed under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme's Conventio ...
) applies.
Gallery
White winged tern.jpg, At Kazinga Channel, Uganda
Chlidonias leucopterus MWNH 0405.JPG, Egg in Museum Wiesbaden
The Museum Wiesbaden is a two-branch museum of art and natural history in the Hessian capital of Wiesbaden, Germany. It is one of the three Hessian State museums, in addition to the museums in Kassel and Darmstadt.
History
The foundation of ...
White-winged Tern, Mścichy, Biebrzański Park Narodowy, Polska.jpg, In Poland
Notes
External links
Whitewinged Tern, ''Witvlerkmeerswael''.''The Atlas of Southern African Birds''
{{Authority control
white-winged tern
The white-winged tern, or white-winged black tern (''Chlidonias leucopterus'' or ''Chlidonias leucoptera''), is a species of tern in the family Laridae. It is a small species generally found in or near bodies of fresh water across much of the wor ...
Birds of Eurasia
Birds of Central Asia
Birds of Manchuria
Birds of Africa
white-winged tern
The white-winged tern, or white-winged black tern (''Chlidonias leucopterus'' or ''Chlidonias leucoptera''), is a species of tern in the family Laridae. It is a small species generally found in or near bodies of fresh water across much of the wor ...
Taxa named by Coenraad Jacob Temminck