Identification

24-28cm. Larger, longer-legged and often stronger-billed than other marsh terns, and flight action less ‘nimble’; plumage can recall Common/Arctic Tern, so shallow tail-fork and greyish rump and tail important to note. Adult summer: Breast and belly dark grey, contrasting strongly with white cheek and underwing-coverts; bill dark red; legs red. Can look quite pale at long range. - Adult winter: Rear crown finely streaked black, and a solid black patch behind eye; told from Black Tern by dark smudge at breast-sides being faint or lacking, from White-winged Tern by plainer upperwing lacking any contrastingly darker outer primaries.

Description

The Whiskered Tern is a colonial breeder of marshes, oxbow lakes and fishponds with fluctuating population, has been regarded the most common marsh tern in Hungary since the 1970s. The largest breeding colonies can be found in the Hortobágy, in the southern Great Plain and at the Kis-Balaton, but it is also known to breed in the Kiskunság and oxbow lakes along the Tisza River and in many alkali lakes east of it. Migrants occur between early April and mid-May in the spring and from late August to late September in the Autumn. At Lake Balaton and in the southern Great Plain some individuals can be observed as late as November and December.