[texbirds] Possible White-winged Tern at Balmorhea Sunday
- From: Martin Reid <upupa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:03:42 -0500
Dear All,
I apologize for the delay between the event and this email; please read the
text on the web page to see why:
http://www.martinreid.com/Main%20website/marshternsp01.html
- It is possible that the terns did not leave the lake (often birds start to
leave then return when they do not see any suitable habitat after climbing
high).
At this point I am not claiming that there was a White-winged Tern present on
Sunday, but I wanted to alert any visitors to the lake to be especially careful
to study any Black-type terns.
This individual - if it is a White-winged Tern - is a molting adult, and will
have some amount of black on the underwing coverts (it could be fairly
contiguous or blotchy). This ought to be diagnostic for White-winged Tern, so
this is vital to get photos of. FYI adult White-winged Terns tend to retain
some black on the underwing coverts well into the molt into non-breeding
plumage - usually with small amounts of black retained even when the rest of
the bird is mostly in Basic plumage.
First-cycle birds do not have any black on the underwing.
Good luck,
Martin
---
Martin Reid
San Antonio
www.martinreid.com
Other related posts:
- » [texbirds] Possible White-winged Tern at Balmorhea Sunday - Martin Reid
