Texas - Terns in Context

Recently mentioned that the Black Tern is one of the smallest of the terns, but I didn't really place that in context. A photo from Rollover Pass on the Bolivar Peninsula may give you a better idea. Here 3 small molting Black Terns are in the center, dwarfed by 3 large Royal Terns to the right with their orange bills, and 2 medium-sized Sandwich Terns on the left, with yellow-tipped black bills. The Royal Tern at 20" is almost as large as the 21" Caspian Tern.

At Bolivar Flats the Black Terns were seen with the slightly smaller Least Terns. I thoughtlessly tried to frame the Black Terns by themselves, but did find the 2 small tern species together. The bill of the Least is yellow in breeding plumage, with a touch of black at the tip. No other terns seen in the U.S. have yellow bills.

Terns were once grouped with the Gulls in the family Laridae but DNA analysis convinced the taxonomists to give terns their own family, Sternidae. There are about 44 species of birds in the tern family, including 5 species with the name noddy.

We did get to see a few distant Gull-billed Terns on the Bolivar Peninsula along Yacht Basin Road, a new species for us. They have relatively longer legs that most terns, as well as thick black bills, and are not usually seen along the shore with other terns.