Birding Detail
White-fronted Tern
Maori Name: Tara
Sterna striata
The White-fronted Tern or Tara is the most common tern in
Up until 1979 the White-fronted Tern only ever bred in
The White-fronted Tern breeds around the coasts and can be commonly seen on inshore and coastal waters, particularly on the east coast and offshore islands.
The population in the past has been regarded as abundant and widespread.
However in 1997, numbers were found to have slipped quite dramatically to 15,000-20,000 pairs from an earlier population estimate in 1984 which was much higher.
Detailed counts that have been carried out in Northland show that their numbers are declining quite rapidly, for unknown reasons, although the fact that breeding colonies are quite mobile makes getting accurate numbers difficult.
What is definite is that declining numbers means there is some kind of loss or disturbance of their breeding habitat. Probable threats include stoats, hedgehogs, rats, dogs and beach vehicles.
It is also quite likely that over-fishing of kahawai may also be contributing to their decline. Kahawai are one of the few inshore fish that push krill and small fish like pilchard and smelt to the surface where whole flocks of terns will easily be able to feed. When Kahawai school numbers are depleted, it follows that terns will have to work harder to find food, and nesting sites may be too distant from the feeding grounds, all of which means that the breeding success rates of terns will be lessened.
White-fronted Tern conservation status has been assessed as in gradual decline. They are a protected native.
The White-fronted Tern is 40 centimetres and 160 grams. Their upper parts and upper wings are a pearly grey-white, while the neck, under parts and under wings are white. The head is capped in black to below the eye and separated by a narrow band of white on their forehead. They have a long black bill, short black or red-black legs and a sharply forked white tail.
In flight, they are very acrobatic, and their smaller body and slim wings gives them great manoeuvrability. To feed they will fly above a shoal of small fish rounded up by the kahawai and plunge dive to scoop the fish from the water without alighting.
As with all terns they fly with their head and bill pointing downwards, so they can see their prey.
Although the White-fronted has webbed feet it rarely swims, apart from bathing.
The call of this tern is a high pitched 'siet' which is repeated irregularly, most often when they are in flight.
The White-fronted Tern is highly gregarious when feeding, roosting, and breeding. Colonies can contain upwards of several thousand pairs, but generally more like 50-200 pairs and occasionally only a few. In the larger colonies, they congregate in tightly packed masses, with nests sometimes less than a metre apart.
Pairs are monogamous and courting behaviour includes the males delivering a fish to the female held crosswise in their bill, even when they are already incubating the eggs.
Breeding is between October and January. The nest will be sited on beaches, low lying sand spits, shingle banks, steep cliffs, rock stacks or offshore islands.
They lay one or two spotted, pale green-blue to light brown eggs which will be incubated by both parents for 24 days. When the chicks hatch they will stay in the nest for a few days and then join other young ones in a crèche. The young can fly at 29–35 days but will be fed by their parents for up to 3 months while they perfect the art of learning how to feed themselves.
They can live to 26 years.
In Maori culture, these birds were likened to persons of rank and status, mostly because of their black-capped heads, which to Maori is sacred. When a group of chiefs were honoured, they were spoken of as being "he tahuna a tara" (a sandbank of Tara) or "he kahui Tara" (a flock of
| Order: | Charadriiformes |
| Family: | Sternidae |
| Genus: | Sterna |
| Species: | striata |
| Sub-species: |
