Tern sea terns have light grey or white body plumage as adults, with a black cap to the head. The legs and bill are various combinations of red, orange, yellow, or black depending on species. The pale plumage is conspicuous from a distance at sea, and may attract other birds to a good feeding area for these fish-eating species. When seen against the sky, the white underparts also help to hide the hunting bird from its intended prey. The Inca tern has mainly dark plumage, and three species that mainly eat insects, the black tern, white-winged tern, and black-bellied tern, have
Black-fronted tern Black-fronted tern The black-fronted tern ("Chlidonias albostriatus") also known as sea martin, ploughboy, inland tern, riverbed tern or tarapiroe, is a small tern generally found in or near bodies of fresh water in New Zealand and forages for freshwater fish, arthropods and worms. It has a predominantly grey plumage. Restricted to breeding in the eastern regions of South Island, it is declining and threatened by introduced mammals and birds. German Johann Reinhold Forster described the black-fronted tern from a specimen collected at Queen Charlotte Sound, Marlborough in 1832, giving it the binomial name "Sterna antarctica", however the name had already