Sandwich Tern they say

There is an added member to the colony this year and that is the Sandwich Tern.

The Sandwich Tern is an endangered species in Sweden so it is nice to know that there is a possible breeding colony right at my doorstep.

I stayed at the colony for almost two hours on Saturday evening to check out the report about the Sandwich Tern actually being there. The first report had been about two individuals, but I saw more than 10 Sandwich Terns at the same time. That is why I actually think they might try and breed there.

My thoughts about them breeding there also come from their aggressive behavior. It seemed to me like they already were lying on eggs, this is pure speculation as I couldn´t see any nests at all. It will be interesting to follow the next couple of weeks to see how things progress.

If you look at my pictures you can see that the Sandwich Tern looks different from the Common Tern.

The Sandwich Tern is bigger and has a black beak with yellow tip and black feet. The Common Tern has orange beak with black tip and orange feet. They are both fast and agile fliers, but I find the Common Tern to be more graceful in flight.

This is the picture idea I got on site when I understood there were more than two Sandwich Terns on site and that it actually might be a small breeding colony. It is also one of the few pictures I got of a Sandwich Tern in full breeding plumage.

I saw the behavior being repeated a couple of times before I got a good grasp of the situation and moved position and started to use the monopod to get better stabilization. That made life less difficult, but far from easy.

Most of my tries ended up erased, but a few like this one turned out nicely. What I like the best is that you have both a green foreground and background in the picture and that you just can see pieces of clear sky in the background.

Please have a look in the gallery and don´t miss the Common Eider sequence. It is a hilarious way to land like that.