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Subject:

Elegant Terns headed to the Eastern Seaboard?

From:

Phil Davis

Reply-To:

Phil Davis

Date:

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:12:02 -0500

MD Osprey:

FYI. The message below is a cross-post from the 
"Frontiers of Bird Identification" listserver (birdwg01).

Elegant Tern is on our Maryland "Next Species 
List." There are Atlantic coast records including 
one from Chinoteague, Virginia. Infomation on 
other Atlantic records is here ...

         http://www.geocities.com/steve_extra/elegant_main2.html

The primary confusion species is Royal Tern, but 
the mostly southern hemisphere Lesser Crested 
Tern would also have to be ruled out. (The 
Cayenne Tern--a subspecies of the Sandwich Tern 
is superficially similar except it has a yellow 
bill rather than the orangish bills of the others.)

Here are a few identification-related links ...

         http://www.sdnhm.org/research/birdatlas/focus/terns.html

         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_Tern

Photos of the Argentina birds are here ...

         http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=108111

Study up for this summer ...

Phil


>Date:         Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:00:17 -0800
>From:         Alvaro Jaramillo <>
>Subject: [BIRDWG01] FW: [alertaves] Sterna 
>elegans en Prov de Bs As: primero registro para Argentina
>To:           
>
>Folks
>
>    Not an id issue here, but it has a potential 
> to be one. A few days ago Juan Mazar Barnett 
> and James Lowen found an Elegant Tern in Buenos 
> Aires province, Argentina (on the Atlantic). 
> After this report a fellow sent a photo of 
> another one he had photographed in Buenos Aires 
> Province last April. Mark Pearman today went to 
> twitch the Elegant (these are the first records 
> for Argentina) and found 4!!! At the same site. 
> So we suddenly have a “bunch” of Elegant Terns 
> at the same site on the Atlantic, and very soon 
> these birds are going to go north. I would look 
> hard in concentrations of terns this summer for 
> Elegant type birds in the Eastern US…or even Europe.
>             Thought many of you would find this of interest.

==================================
Phil Davis      Davidsonville, Maryland     USA
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