I think Steen Jensen may have made a mistake when he uploaded this picture and inadvertedly chose the wrong species or did the bill-colour throw you off course? The picture shows an adult Common Tern moulting into winter plumage. In autumn many adult Common Terns aquire a more or less red bill before it turns dark brown in winter. Both the structure of this bird with a long bill and longish neck and the pattern on the primaries (almost uniformly dark old outer primaries without clear cut off black on the trailing edge of the undersurface) look to my eyes typical of Common Tern.

cheers, pim wolf, vlissingen, the Netherlands

Hallo. Er dette ikke en fjordterne? Ellers har jeg fejlbestemt rigtig mange af slagsen!! Langt dolkeformet næb, forholdsvis korte haleforlængelser, hovedform og først og fremmest det meget store/brede mørke område på håndsvingfjerene siger fjord. OK det røde næb har måske snydt, men det er ikke usædvanligt med manglende mørk næbspids hos fjordterne.
Iøvrigt et rigtig smukt billede, som fremover vil kunne bruges pædagogisk.
Bedste hilsner Lars Tom-P

Den fiskede godt nok sammen med andre fjordterner, som jeg også har billeder af, og i skudøjeblikket tænkte jeg ikke på havterne. Men tvivlen indfandt sig åbentbart foran skærmen, da jeg kom hjem og så billederne igennem. Så intuitivt skulle jeg bare have holdt fast på det, jeg så gennem linsen.
Nå, ikke flere undskyldninger - vil Netfugl venligst rette.

Hi Pim,

Thanks for posting your comment on Netfugl.
Since the other comments are on Danish you probably do not understand what is written. I will therefore try to translate the essence of the two other comments.

Lars agrees with your id of the bird listing about the same characters as you do. Subsequently Steen also agrees after looking at the picture once again. He did not think of arctic tern in the field, but came in doubt in front of the screen when he saw the picture.

Due to these comments, the name has been corrected to common tern.

I hope this helps a bit.


Furthermore, I would like to apply to all Danish birders posting comments to a picture, where there already are non-Danish comments, to post their comments in English.

Best regards
Janus