Little Tern
Sternula albifrons
Tiny, delicate-looking tern. Mainly coastal, but also occurs inland locally. Breeding plumage has black cap with white forehead chevron, black-tipped yellow bill. Readily identified by tiny size, though wintering adults can be confusingly similar in patterning to Common Tern; look out for black stripes extending from the shoulder to the wingtip. Breeds colonially on sandy and stony substrates, at times with other terns, from beaches to riverbanks and lakeshores. Often overlooked unless noisy and mobbing you at a colony. Flies with hurried deep wingbeats; splash dives in water to catch small fish.
Taxonomy
- Scientific name
- Sternula albifrons
- Authority
- (Pallas, 1764)
- Order
- Charadriiformes
- Family
- Laridae
- Genus
- Sternula
Range and habitat
- Migration
- Complete migrants
Conservation
- Population trend
- declining
Photos
Distribution
Bird Calls
Other Birds
Tongan Megapode
Megapodius pritchardii
A plump, mostly ground-dwelling bird with long yellowish legs and a dark gray body with slightly browner wash on the wings and back. Head mostly dark gray, with bright orange beak and whitish crest. Good views may show blood-red bare skin around the eye and throat. Found in mature woodland with open understory. Nests on crater lake islands. Resident, with no record of vagrancy. Very vocal, most frequently heard in groups giving chorus of loud piping whistles and shrill cries. Calls are usually a staccato one-note whistle. Unmistakable, as it is the only scrubfowl in its range.
Blackish-gray Antshrike
Thamnophilus nigrocinereus
A fairly large antshrike of riparian zones with lots of regional variation in plumage. Males are dark gray above, paler below, with white wing bars (not spots); the northwest subspecies is gray with a black cap. Females are rusty with a dark-gray hood. Found in seasonally flooded forests, river island forests, and mangroves. Forages close to the ground and sometimes accompanies mixed-species flocks. The song is an accelerating series of whistled descending notes.
White-cheeked Nuthatch
Sitta leucopsis
Small nuthatch with a large-eyed appearance. Blue-gray above and white below with a black crown and rusty sides. Very similar in appearance to the closely-related Przewalski’s Nuthatch, but no range overlap. Inhabits coniferous and mixed forests in the Himalayan foothills; male frequently perches on the tops of conifers during breeding season, giving an odd waggling display. Calls loudly and frequently with an insistent series of flat nasal bleats.
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