First report of Black Terns breeding on a coastal barrier island.

Publication: Wilson Bulletin

Publication Date: 01-MAR-06

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The North American subspecies of Black Tern (Chlidonias niger surinamensis) breeds locally across the northern United States and central Canada. Black Terns are semicolonial, typically nesting in productive, shallow freshwater marshes, semipermanent ponds, prairie sloughs, and along margins of lakes and rivers (Stewart and Kantrud 1984, Dunn and Agro 1995, Schummer and Eddleman 2003). Nests are generally placed in areas of calm water within stands of emergent bulrush (Scirpus spp.), cattail (Typha spp.), bur-reed (Sparganium spp.), or pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata; Cuthbert 1954, Dunn 1979, Mazzocchi et al. 1997). Nests are usually built over shallow water (0.5-1.2 m deep) on a floating substrate of matted, dead marsh vegetation, floating rootstalks and discarded pieces of wood, or muskrat feeding platforms; occasionally, nests are built on non-floating substrates, including muskrat lodges, flattened vegetation, and mud (Cuthbert 1954, Bergman et al. 1970, Dunn 1979). Nests often consist of dead vegetation arranged in a compressed pile with a shallow depression at the top (Dunn and Agro 1995).

Black Terns use coastal habitats during migration, winter, and in summer when non-breeding birds aggregate in large flocks (100+ birds) on saltpans, marshes, estuaries, and brackish wetlands (Dunn and Agro 1995). Reports of Black Terns breeding in marine areas are extremely rare (Sirois and Fournier 1993). In the mid-1990s, a single nest was found at Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Rockland, Maine...

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