Gull-billed Tern (Asian), affinis – amongst macrotarsa (Australian). Now a full split

Just before we depart north for a family holiday in Queensland I thought I’d recount the story of our quest to add another tern species to my Hunter Bird Observers Club (HBOC) list. I have nothing but admiration for the members of this group who run an excellent bird club, covering the catchment area of the Hunter river, north of Sydney. Compared to my own North East Norfolk Bird Club recording area HBOC is huge – probably bigger than the size of the combined counties of East Anglia. So creating, maintaining or increasing a HBOC list is no mean feat. Last time I was out here I achieved the minor milestone of ‘300 in the Hunter’ – the ‘big guns’ here all have lists of well over 400! So, on our second day in NSW, we headed a couple of hours north up the coast to visit a known tern roost where, amongst the regulars, a recently discovered Roseate Tern has been roosting for over a week. However, on the day of our visit, the tern decided to roost elsewhere – apparently the first time it had done so during its stay! As luck would have it though, much closer to home at Stockton sand-spit, another less-rare tern was hanging about. Yesterday, on our second attempt, we nailed it. This was an Asian Gull-billed Tern – a recent split from the endemic Australian Gull-billed Tern – which is seen in the Hunter area on a near annual basis. It really is distinctive though, being smaller than its Aussie counter-part, a shade darker, with a slightly different head profile and, conveniently for us, in contrasting winter plumage. A lesser Tern, but a good looking bird and a ‘Hunter tick’ for me!