Terns, Magellan Strait, Chile (1 Viewer)

opisska

rabid twitcher

• Apr 11, 2013

• #1

Sailing the Punta Arenas - Porvenir ferry, a stunning sight of a group of terns on a patch of seeweed in the middle of the Strait appeared. It turns out that it is not completely trivial to tak e pictures using a 500mm manual lens from a seaborne ship, but one image came out unbelievably clear (this is 1:1 crop).

The problem is that it does not really help me to say which are these - Common, Antartcic or South-American?

 

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njlarsen

Gallery Moderator

Opus Editor

Supporter

• Apr 11, 2013

• #2

When were you there? can you use the finding of almost full breeding plumage to make a call?

Niels

 

Southern Frogmouth

Well-known member

• Apr 11, 2013

• #3

Having seen Artic Tern in New Zealand in early Decemebr with a hood resembling that of second bird from the left I'm not so sure about that. Although I suspect that getting all four in summer type plumage would seem unlikely I'll admit.

 

opisska

rabid twitcher

• Apr 11, 2013

• #4

njlarsen said:

When were you there? can you use the finding of almost full breeding plumage to make a call?

Niels

Click to expand...

Beginning of this March. Considering the extreme migration behaviour of terns, I am not really sure what the plummage tells me.

 

njlarsen

Gallery Moderator

Opus Editor

Supporter

• Apr 11, 2013

• #5

Assuming that moult patterns in the southern hemisphere are mirror images of the north, I would think that the full hood of most of these would favor a northern hemisphere species when the photo is from March. In northern fall, most of the terns have some white on the front if I recall correctly.

Niels

 

Alan henry

Well-known member

• Apr 11, 2013

• #6

Steamer Ducks are easy compared to Terns!!!

I would say South American Terns, but the one on the far right looks a lot darker grey so could be Antarctic Tern. I am very wary of trying to ID terns in the Southern hemisphere from photo's.

You can't make the call on the plumage state as I saw an adult South American Tern a couple of days ago in near full breeding plumage.

Cheers

Alan

 

Last edited: Apr 11, 2013