Interesting sightings in southern Mozambique of 13 species of terns, gulls and skuas

What is it about?

Interesting sightings in southern Mozambique of 13 species of terns, gulls and skuas are reported, the result of regular observations between October 2010 and September 2017 while I was based in the capital, Maputo. These include the first two records of Black Tern Chlidonias niger, the first fully documented record of Lesser Noddy Anous tenuirostris and the first observations of live Arctic Terns Sterna paradisaea for Mozambique, as well as status updates for Kelp Gull Larus dominicanus, Lesser Black-backed Gull L. fuscus, Sabine's Gull Xema sabini, Gullbilled Tern Gelochelidon nilotica, Swift Tern Thalasseus bergii, Sooty Tern Onychoprion fuscatus, Common Tern Sterna hirundo, Black-naped Tern S. sumatrana, Roseate Tern S. dougallii and Subantarctic Skua Stercorarius antarcticus in southern Mozambique.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This bird is well known for its record-setting migrations from the breeding grounds in the north Atlantic to the polar seas off the Antarctic and is regular in the cape of South Africa but until very recently was only known in Mozambique from one recovery of a ringed bird. Careful observations have shown that Arctic Terns are present offshore in Mozambique in small but probably significant numbers. This bird was photographed off Maputo in June 2017 and represents a little-known population of non-breeding birds probably in their first or second years (can anyone age this bird?) that may spend the southern winter in the Indian Ocean. There was also one day in May 2015 with Felix Njenga Koimburi when we found 20 adults in breeding plumage offshore north of Inhaca. Based on popular knowledge it is assumed that such birds are heading round the cape and up the Atlantic to breed. However, there is the intriguing report by John Ash of possibly large numbers of adult Arctic Terns migrating inland from the Indian Ocean at Mogadishu in Somalia in April/May 1979/80 and a few years later a bird was trapped at night in the Nile Valley near to Khartoum. Is there a separate population of Arctic Terns in the Indian Ocean one wonders?