| The Sandwich Tern can be identified by its long black, yellow tipped bill and its black cap and short crest. This graceful flyer is a slender white bird with a gray mantle. Like other terns this species will have a white crown and forehead during the winter.
The habitat consists of the sandy beaches and coastal islands along the gulf coast and along the southern Atlantic seaboard. They form colonies and are almost always found in colonies with the Royal Tern. They show very little site tenacity as the nesting sites are sometimes ephemeral in nature. They winter in the islands of the Gulf of Mexico and south to Mexico, Brazil and Peru.
Sandwich Terns form a long term pair bond and usually breed at about 3 or 4 years of age. The clutch consists of 2 greenish eggs with black spots laid in the bare sand above the high tide line. The eggs are incubated by both parents for about 24 days.
After hatching the young form a mixed creche with the Royal Tern chicks. It is believed that the young that form creches are less susceptible to predation. A few adults will guard the creche of as many as a thousand chicks while other adults go out to hunt. Despite the chaotic appearance of these colonies, Sandwich Terns have the amazing ability to recognize their chicks by sound or by sight at about 4 or 5 days and will seldom feed any young but their own. The young will learn to fly at about 5 weeks and will continue to be fed by the parents until they can join in the hunt.
The diet consists of fish, squid and shrimp which they hover and dive for offshore. Inland marine worms make up a larger portion of their diet.
Length: 16 inches
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