Sandwich tern

Sandwich tern

Sterna sandvicensis

ITIS Species Code: 176927 NatureServ Element Code: ABNNM08050

Taxa:

Order:

Family:

Aves

Charadriiformes

Laridae

NatureServe Global Rank:

NatureServe State (NC) Rank:

S3B,SZN

Federal Status:

NC State Status:

---

W2,W5

PARTNERS IN FLIGHT PRIORITY SCORES:

Southern Blue Ridge:

n/a

Southern Piedmont:

n/a

South Atl. Coastal Plain:

n/a

HEXAGONAL KNOWN RANGE:

PREDICTED DISTRIBUTION:

SUMMARY OF STATEWIDE PREDICTED DISTRIBUTION:

Land Unit

US Fish & Wildlife Service

US Forest Service

US National Park Service

US Department of Defense

NC State Parks

NC University System

NC Wildlife Res. Com.

NC Forest Service

NC Div. of Coastal Mgmt.

Local Governments

Non-Governmental Org.

Other Public Lands

Private Lands

GAP Status 1-2

All Protected Lands

Statewide

Hectares

13,705.56

139.14

6,308.10

9,548.55

1,700.64

0.00

3,671.01

0.00

1,593.81

2.52

1,679.76

34.65

58,384.53

26,800.20

37,902.78

96,768.27

Acres

33,867.17

343.82

15,587.65

23,594.98

4,202.37

0.00

9,071.26

0.00

3,938.39

6.23

4,150.78

85.62

144,271.29

66,224.72

93,659.79

239,119.56

% of Dist. on

Prot. Lands

36.2 %

0.4 %

15.4 %

25.2 %

4.5 %

0.0 %

9.7 %

0.0 %

4.2 %

4.4 %

< 0.1 %

0.0 %

70.7 %

-----

% of Dist. on

All Lands

14.2 %

0.1 %

6.5 %

9.9 %

1.8 %

0.0 %

3.8 %

0.0 %

1.6 %

< 0.1 %

1.7 %

< 0.1 %

60.3 %

27.7 %

-----

HABITAT DESCRIPTION:

Nests in several colonies on the barrier islands (Portnoy 1981).
Nests locally on sandy ocean beaches on the barrier islands (Portnoy 1981), almost always in association with Royal Terns. Prefers warm fairly shallow waters such as bays and estuaries near large beaches and mudflats, but also forages by diving a distance out in the ocean and also by hawking insects in flight (Ehrlich et al. 1988)
Nests in an open area (Kaufman 1996) on bare sand above the high water mark, occasionally among shells (Ehrlich et al. 1988).
NATURE SERVE GLOBAL HABITAT COMMENTS:

Seacoasts, bays, estuaries, mudflats, river mouths, lagoons. In North America, nests with royal tern on unvegetated bare sand or sand-shell substrates on barrier beaches, sandflats, or dredge-spoil islands; sometimes in association with laughing gull or black skimmer. Colonies occur on dredged material islands in North Carolina, on barrier islands in South Carolina, both types of sites in Florida and Texas; the largest colonies in Louisiana occur on barrier beaches of Chandeleur Islands (Spendelow and Patton 1988).

MODELING DESCRIPTION:

Occupied Landcover Map Units:

Code	Name	Description	NC Natural Heritage Program Equivalent
378	Ocean Beaches	Open beach sand.	Upper Beach
3	Tidal Marsh	Fresh and brackish tidal marshes, including cord grass, wild rice, sawgrass and needlerush alliances.	Brackish Marsh, Interdune pond, Maritime wet grassland
375	Hypersaline coastal salt flats	Tidal flats within salt marshes, including saltmeadow cordgrass or sea-purslane dominated alliances.	Salt Marsh
372	Interdune Herbaceous Wetlands	Dune swales with permanently flooded to intermittently exposed hydrology. Species composition depends on salinity and can include cut grass, spike-rush, mosquito fern, and hornwort.	Interdune Pond, Maritime Wet Grasslands
371	Maritime Grasslands	Dune grass community consisting of sea oats and beach grasses.	Dune grass, Maritime dry grassland
8	Open water	Open water without aquatic vegetation.	No equivalent

View Entire Landcover Legend

Additional Spatial Constraints:

Exclude all area outside of known range.

Exclude all land greater than 500 meters from an open water feature.

Exclude all water greater than 500 meters from land.

Exclude fresh water habitats.

CITATIONS:

Bent, A.C. 1921. Life histories of North American gulls and terns. U.S. Natl. Mux. Bull. 113. Washington, D.C.

Kaufman K. 1996. Lives of North American Birds. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Barcena, F., A. M. Teixeira, and Andres Bermejo. 1984. Breeding seabird populations in the Atlantic sector of the Iberian Peninsula. Pages 335-345 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.

Buckley, P. A., and F. G. Buckley. 1984. Seabirds of the north and middle Atlantic coast of the United States:their status and conservation. Pages 101-133 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.

Clapp, R. B., and P. A. Buckley. 1984. Status and conservation of seabirds in the southeastern United States. Pages 135-155 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.

Evans, P. G. H. 1984. Status and conservation of seabirds in northwest Europe (excluding Norways and the USSR). Pages 293-321 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.

James, P. C. 1984. The status and conservation of seabirds in the Mediterranean region. Pages 371-375 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.

Harrison, C. 1978. A field guide to the nests, eggs and nestlings of North American birds. Collins, Cleveland, Ohio.

Sprunt, A., IV. 1984. The status and conservation of seabirds of the Bahama Islands. Pages 157-168 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.

van Halewyn, R., and R. L. Norton. 1984. The status and conservation of seabirds in the Caribbean. Pages 169-222 in Croxall et al., eds. Status and conservation of the world's seabirds. ICBP Tech. Pub. No. 2.

Terres, J.K. 1980. The Audubon Society encyclopedia of North American birds. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Wiley, J. W. 1985. Bird conservation in the United States Caribbean. Pages 107-159 in Temple, S. A., editor. Bird conservation 2. Univ. Wisconsin Press, Madison. 181 pp.

American Ornithologists' Union (AOU), Committee on Classification and Nomenclature. 1983. Check-list of North American Birds. Sixth Edition. American Ornithologists' Union, Allen Press, Inc., Lawrence, Kansas.

Raffaele, H.A. 1983. A guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Fondo Educativo Interamericano, San Juan, Puerto Rico. 255 pp.

Ehrlich, P.R., D.S. Dobkin, and D. Wheye. 1988. The birder's handbook:a field guide to the natural history of North American birds. Simon and Shuster, Inc., New York. xxx + 785 pp.

Spendelow, J.A., and S.R. Patton. 1988. National atlas of coastal waterbird colonies in the contiguous United States:1976-1982. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Biological Report 88(5). x + 326 pp.

Byrd, M.A., and D.W. Johnston. 1991. Birds. Pages 477-537 in K. Terwilliger, coordinator. Virginia's endangered species:proceedings of a symposium. McDonald and Woodward Publ. Co., Blacksburg, Virginia.

Stiles, F.G., and A.F. Skutch. 1989. A guide to the birds of Costa Rica. Comstock Publ. Associates, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York. 511 pp.

10 March 2005

This data was compiled and/or developed by the North Carolina GAP Analysis Project.

For more information please contact them at:
NC-GAP Analysis Project
Dept. of Zoology, NCSU
Campus Box 7617
Raleigh, NC 27695-7617
(919) 513-2853
www.basic.ncsu.edu/ncgap