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Recently, a Saunders's tern was sighted at the Adyar Estuary, Chennai, marking the first record of this bird in the city.
It is a small, ground-nesting marine bird found on coastal sandbars and mudflats.
Scientific name -Sternula saundersi.
It is also known as the black-shafted tern.
Family – This bird species belongs to the family Laridae.
Habitat -Found on coastal sand bars and mudflats, and sometimes on the open ocean.
Distribution - It is sparsely resident along the shores of the north-western Indian Ocean including southern Somalia, Arabian Peninsula, Socotra, Pakistan, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and northern Sri Lanka.
Morphology - It has a yellow bill and neat black head markings in breeding plumage, and a dark bill and messier head markings in non-breeding plumage.
It is a close relative of the little tern, least tern, yellow-billed tern, and Peruvian tern.
In breeding plumage, Saunders’s Tern can be identified by the fact that the small white patch on its forehead is squared off and doesn’t extend behind the eye.
In non-breeding plumage, the two species may be indistinguishable.
Diet -Comprises many kinds of marine animals, such as small fish, crustaceans, and mollusks.
Breeding -It nests on the ground up to 2 km inland on uncovered sandy sites, shingles, or dried mud.
The species breeds on the sandbars of Adam's bridge, (located between India’s Pamban Island and Sri Lanka’s Mannar Island) is a chain of natural limestone shoals.
