Birds Spotted 10-11-2008

10-11-2008

Birds spotted:

• 2 Fish-Eagles
  
• 3 Yellow-billed Egret
• About 10 Whiskered Terns are still around (photograph)
  

Rietvlei birds 10-11-2008

10-11-2008
Birds spotted:

• Fish-Eagles 2

• 3 Yellow-billed Egret

• About 10 Whiskered Terns are still around
• 
  
• 

Photograph Whiskered Tern flying over Rietvlei dam 10-11-2008

BIRD ID

05-Nov-2008

I spotted some birds (about 8) with black body, red beak, grey tail, black cap and white a stripe across the eye.

We forwarded a photograph to Trevor Hardaker from www.zestforbirds.co.za to confirm the ID of the bird. His reply was

There is no doubt that it is in fact a Whiskered Tern, which is in full breeding plumage. The potential confusion candidate, White-cheeked Tern, has a deeply forked tail and not a squarish ended tail like the bird in the photo and is also not quite as dark on the underside as is the bird in the photo.