Forster's Tern (Sterna forsteri)

Sighting Ref :

IB108915

Sighting Date :

11 May 18

Common Name :

Forster's Tern

Scientific Name :

Sterna forsteri

Location :

Tacumshin

County :

Wexford

Number Seen :

Principal Observer(s) :

Killian Mullarney Not Specified

Reported By :

Not Specified

Comments :

From 2008 to 2012 an adult Forster's Tern returned to Tacumshin every summer and remained for a period of several weeks. It was mostly seen fishing on the 'east end pool' and curiously, it often behaved as if on territory, dive-bombing and calling aggressively at birders if they took up a position at the margin of the pool! Whenever it caught a fish, it would depart with it in its bill, calling loudly, and head east, toward the tern colony at Our Lady's Island Lake, a couple of kilometers away. On one occasion I was watching the colony from the west shore of the lake when I picked up the Forster's arriving with a large fish in its bill. It proceeded to fly around, periodically dropping into the midst of breeding sub-colonies of both Common and Sandwich Terns, and apparently trying to attract interest of these birds. We can only hope it didn't succeed! Apart from a very brief appearance at Tacumshin last year ( but then only at the sluice) this is the first time a bird has been seen at the east end pool since 2012. During the intervening years there were two or three erroneous claims that the bird was back, but these all proved to involve either Common or Arctic Terns. The expectation that the bird would reappear probably played a large part in these claims, but some observers were very surprised at how 'white' the upper primaries can look on the commoner species, in certain light conditions. When I picked the bird up yesterday evening it was some distance away, but I secured a few very distant 'record-shots' in order to corroborate the identification, just in case it didn't stay for long, or return. Paul Kelly secured some much better shots of the bird a short time later, from much closer range, but it is interesting to view the more distant images and consider the most useful identification features, which I have annotated in these shots. Surprisingly, the bird appears not to have been seen today, as in previous years it visited the pool repeatedly, throughout the day. Hopefully it will establish a regular pattern in the coming days. We are a bit spoiled with the frequency of Forster's Tern records in Ireland, even though most current records probably relate to one particularly long-lived individual that tours the country. It remains a very rare bird in Europe, and even our closest neighbour, Britain, has only about half of the number of records we have in Ireland.

Status :

See IRBC Appendix 2

Photos :