Schmuckseeschwalbe

Bestimmung

The elegant tern (Thalasseus elegans) is a tern in the family Laridae. It breeds on the Pacific coast of southern California in the United States and western Mexico, and migrates south to Peru, Ecuador and Chile for the northern winter; in the late summer and fall, some also disperse north to Oregon and more rarely Washington. This species breeds in very dense colonies on coasts and islands, including Isla Rasa and Montague Island in Mexico, as well as South Bay Salt Works (San Diego) and Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in California. Exceptionally, vagrants can occur inland on suitable large freshwater lakes. The elegant tern feeds by plunge-diving for fish, almost invariably from the sea, like most Thalasseus terns. It usually dives directly, and not from the "stepped-hover" favored by the Arctic tern. The offering of fish by the male to the female is part of the courtship display. This Pacific species has wandered to western Europe as a rare vagrant on a number of occasions. The first European record was at Carlingford Lough in County Down, Northern Ireland, in late June 1982. It has nested in Spain, and has interbred with a Sandwich tern in France. There is also one record from Cape Town, South Africa, in January 2006, the first record for Africa.

Taxonomie

The current genus name is derived from Greek Thalassa , "sea", and elegans is Latin for "elegant, fine". [ 9 ] Though described in 1822, the genus was largely treated as a synonym of Sterna until a 2005 study demonstrated that the systematics of the terns needed review. [ 10 ] The closest relative of the elegant tern is Cabot's tern T. acuflavidus , which breeds on the Atlantic coasts of the Americas; this species pair is then next most closely related to the Old World Sandwich tern . [ 11 ] [ 12 ] [ 13 ]

Wissenschaftlicher Name

Thalasseus elegans

Autorität

(Gambel, 1849)

Ordnung

Regenpfeiferartige

Familie

Möwen (Laridae)

Gattung

Thalasseus

Verbreitung und Lebensraum

Breeding range: NA, MA : coastal e Pacific of sw California and Baja California and Gulf of California (nw Mexico). Non-breeding range: to coastal e Pacific from n California to c Chile.

Brutgebiet

NA, MA : coastal e Pacific of sw California and Baja California and Gulf of California (nw Mexico)

Überwinterungsgebiet

to coastal e Pacific from n California to c Chile

Zugverhalten

Vollzieher

Verhalten

Zugverhalten: Vollzieher.

Schutzstatus

Bestandstrend: stabil.

Bestandstrend

stabil