Black Tern
Learn to identify the Black Tern by ear. Master the "kip-kip-kip-kip" phrase and tell it apart from similar species.
What the Black Tern sounds like
A mix of sharp klea cries and short, clipped kik notes carries over the marsh. Nesting birds often add longer call shapes to the quick kik.
How to tell it apart
Lessons featuring the Black Tern
Ready to test your ear? Practice identifying the Black Tern's sounds in this interactive in-app lesson.
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Where you'll hear it
Long-distance migrant. Breeds locally across temperate North America, Europe and western Asia; winters mainly off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Central & South America and along the west and southern coasts of Africa.
Shallow freshwater wetlands such as cattail marshes, prairie potholes, flooded meadows and lake edges with abundant emergent vegetation; during migration and winter, also coastal lagoons, estuaries and inshore marine waters.
Northern breeders arrive at nesting marshes from late April to June, depart July–September. Migration peaks May and August. On wintering grounds, most present October–March.
How to recognize it by sight
A small, elegant marsh-loving tern distinguished by its dusky breeding plumage and buoyant flight. Unlike the more coastal ‘white’ terns, the Black Tern forages mostly over freshwater, hawking insects in swallow-like fashion and dipping to the surface for tiny fish. Its fluttery wing-beats, quick turns and habit of hovering give it an almost butterfly-like presence above reedy ponds and flooded meadows.
Similar species
Common Tern
Common Terns are pale gray below in breeding plumage and white below in winter, with a much more deeply forked tail. Breeding adults have a red-orange bill tipped in black; by winter the bill is mostly dark.
White-winged Tern
In breeding plumage, has contrasting white wings; in non-breeding, lacks dark shoulder bar of Black Tern
Forster’s Tern
Larger, longer bill and tail, shows pale whitish primaries creating ‘frosted’ wing tips