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Terns at West Coast NP South Africa Sept (1 Viewer)

Andy Hurley

Andy Hurley

Gotta love nature!
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Scotland
Hi,
I am have a great deal of difficulty trying to identify some Terns from peninsula of the West Coast National Park north of Yzerfontein.
Although some appear to have yellow tips to their black beaks, they also have red legs of varying lengths, so I trhink that rules out Sandwich Tern as they have black legs(?) I was wondering if any of these were Roseate or Antarctic Terns rather than migrant Common and Arctic Terns. Is the tern in flight a Damara Tern?

Many thanks for your help.
 

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Tern in flight looks like Sandwich to me, including yellow bill tip.

The other three pics are too dark to make out, I'll try brightening in photoshop later.
 
Damara would be very uncommon (rare?) at WCNP I think Andy, they're not that easy at the site in Namibia where people go to see them.


A
 
Thanks guys. The Terns were all at WCNP, so that probably rules out Damara then! I'll see what I can do with breaking down and brightening the group shots
 
I brighten and isolated a few
 

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I also found another photo of the tern in flight. Does this confirm it as Sandwich?
 

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The first photo of the second lot shows a bird with a much shorter bill, therefore I think there are more than one type here. The last photo of #7 shows what could possibly even 3 types going on bill size and head shape and I think the rearmost is the largest of the three.

I know that birds don't read field guides, butCommon and Arctic only arrive in October, so these would be either immatures of which a few stay over, or possibly Antarctic or Roseate that are either over wintering (April - November) or resident for the latter.

I have several field guides open in front of me and I still find it hard to distinguish between the tern species:-C
 
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