Juvenile common tern?

[P-A. Fortin]

I was going through my old pictures of that time where bird photography meant no more to me than "a photograph which includes some bird, somewhere in the image" (pretty much everything older than 6 months ago :eek:) and found this picture of a bird I could not identify at that time.

Being a tad more knowledgeable now, I might put my money on a juvenile common tern. But I would like to confirm, so I'll rely on experience, which is where you might come into play :t3

The picture was taken in mid-september, in mid-Alberta (Canada), near the Saskatchewan border.


Thank you!

http://www.pafortin.net/IMG_6117.jpg

[John Chardine]

It certainly looks like a juvi Common Tern to me. Here is one for comparison. Note the orange bill, light forehead, brownish tinge to feathers of head and back, longish legs.

[P-A. Fortin]

Nice shot. From mine, my attention was mainly focused on the bill and on the dark shoulders. From yours, alot of other details such as the brown feathers are striking.

Thanks for the confirmation. I'm glad I got this one right!

[Dave Irons]

This is really nice image. If you'd like to put this image to good use, we would love to include it in the BirdFellow.com gallery for this species. We have shots of a hatchling Common Tern and an older juvenile (September) that has lost most of its brown scalloping, but none of birds at this age and plumage condition.

[John Chardine]

Thanks Dave. I thought I had put it to good use by posting it here on BPN. I'll have a look at Birdfellow. Never been there.