The Whiskered tern eats small fish, amphibians, insects and crustaceans.

Just how the solitary whiskered tern managed to cross the Atlantic to reach these shores is something of a mystery.

Several hundred thousand water birds winter in the delta, including the world's largest concentrations of little gulls and whiskered terns.

Juvenile Whiskered Terns have a ginger scaly back, and otherwise look much like winter adults.

More deeply forked tail and longer thinner bill separate from Whiskered Tern (p 163) in summer.

But the whiskered tern, common in Europe, Africa and Asia, had never been seen in North America.

Complete white collar, paler rump and less forked tail are best distinctions from winter Whiskered Tern.

Other birds that have been recorded in large numbers include Whiskered Terns and Eurasian Coots.

"We had a whiskered tern show up all the way from Africa last year, so that should give you an idea of how important we are for birds down here."

The Whiskered Tern (Chlidonias hybrida) is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae.

Several rare birds have been recorded such as Whiskered Tern, Green-winged Teal and Ring-necked Duck.

It supports regionally significant numbers of Australian Pelicans, Eurasian Coots and Whiskered Terns.

There were egrets, herons, flamingos, red-crested pochards and coots, along with dozens of insect-eating whiskered terns that hovered just above the water like Brobdingnagian hummingbirds.

A variety of ducks, waders, and other waterbirds occur and numerous rarities have been recorded such as broad-billed, stilt sandpipers, Caspian, and whiskered terns.

LARIDAE Chlidonias hybrida (Whiskered Tern)

The object of all the attention was a 10-inch-long blur of gray and white feathers beneath a black cap, listed in bird directories as a whiskered tern (Chlidonias hybridus).

WHISKERED TERN Chlidonias hybrida.

He discovered notes on the Sand Martin and the Rufous-sided Towhee and the Isabel-line Wheatear and the Whiskered Tern.

Britain's largest flock of Whiskered Terns (Chlidonias hybridus) (eleven) at Willington Gravel Quarry, Derbyshire on 24 April.

Particularly common ones include Black-winged Stilt, Whiskered Tern, Grey Teal, White-necked Heron, and Great Egret.

It is one of the most important breeding sites in Western Australia for Gelochelidon nilotica (Gull-billed Tern) and Chlidonias hybridus (Whiskered Tern).

Word of the whiskered tern began spreading the evening it was sighted, and by the next morning was carried by the Rare Bird Alert and state hot lines, in addition to BirdChat.

Waterbirds, such as heron, rail, crake, Egyptian Goose, Spur-winged Goose, kingfisher, coot, Sacred Ibis and Whiskered Tern, make up a large proportion of the birdlife.

An large diversity of natural habitats is responsible for an abundance of wildlife of which the best known are the birds: purple heron, black-necked grebe, bittern, marsh harrier, whiskered tern, short-toed eagle.

"What more often happens is that people are mistaken about what they've seen or heard," said Joan Walsh, a biologist at the Cape May Bird Observatory, which operates the refuge where the whiskered tern was first spotted.