The Black Tern is a small, buoyant marsh tern unlike any other in Michigan, especially in breeding plumage, when its head and body turn sooty black, set off by silvery-gray wings and tail. It does not plunge-dive like the pale terns; instead it courses gracefully and erratically low over marshes and fields, dipping to the water's surface to pluck insects or snatching them from the air, more like a giant swallow than a typical tern. Its flight is light and dancing, and small groups often forage together over a marsh.
Black Terns nest in loose colonies on freshwater marshes, placing flimsy nests on floating vegetation and mats of dead plants, and they depend on large marshes with a mix of open water and emergent cover. This reliance on extensive wetland has made them vulnerable: Black Tern numbers have declined significantly with the loss and degradation of marsh habitat, and they are a species of conservation concern across much of the region. In Michigan they breed locally in the larger marshes from late spring into summer before departing for tropical coasts.
Feeds largely on aquatic and flying insects, along with small fish, caught by coursing low over marshes and water and dipping to the surface or hawking prey in the air. Unlike the pale terns it rarely plunge-dives, taking most of its food on the wing or from the water's surface.
Rather than plunge-diving, it flies low and erratically over marshes and fields, dipping to the water to pick off insects or catching them in the air, much like a swallow. It eats mostly insects along with some small fish.
Black Terns depend on large freshwater marshes with open water and emergent vegetation for nesting, and the loss and degradation of such wetlands has driven significant declines, making them a species of conservation concern.
In breeding plumage it is unmistakable — a small tern with a sooty-black head and body and silvery-gray wings. In fall it is white below with a dark cap and a dark mark at the side of the chest, still small and marsh-loving.
Juveniles and molting fall adults lose the sooty black underparts and turn white below with a dark cap and a distinctive dark shoulder smudge. Late-summer birds are often caught partway through, looking blotchy.
A colony. Black Terns nest semi-colonially on floating vegetation in marshes, which makes them highly vulnerable to water-level changes and is a factor in their steep decline.
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