First records of the Gull-billed Tern, Gelochelidon nilotica (Gmelin, 1789) (Aves: Sternidae), from Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil

Maria Alice Alves; Roberta Guido; Maurício Vecchi; Rodrigo Carvalheira

doi:10.15560/12.2.1878

Check List 12(2): e19480, doi: 10.15560/12.2.1878

First records of the Gull-billed Tern, Gelochelidon nilotica (Gmelin, 1789) (Aves: Sternidae), from Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil

Roberta de Moura Guido^‡, Rodrigo Guerra Carvalheira^‡, Maurício Brandão Vecchi^‡, Maria Alice S. Alves^‡

‡ Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Corresponding author: Maria Alice Alves ( masaalves19@gmail.com )

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Alves M, Guido R, Vecchi M, Carvalheira R (2016) First records of the Gull-billed Tern, Gelochelidon nilotica (Gmelin, 1789) (Aves: Sternidae), from Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. Check List 12(2): 1878. https://doi.org/10.15560/12.2.1878

Abstract

Here we report the first documented records of the Gull-billed Tern, Gelochelidon nilotica (Gmelin, 1789), from Rio de Janeiro state, on the coast of southeastern Brazil. The species was recorded in Sepetiba Bay, in Rio de Janeiro municipality, in August and September 2014 and September 2015. In all cases, the birds had full nuptial plumage, which suggests breeding in the austral spring and summer. This is inconsistent with the possibility of a migrant from the Northern Hemisphere. The regular monitoring of the coastal environments of this region should provide more conclusive insights into seasonal patterns and the migration routes of this species.

Keywords

bird; distribution; migrant; Sepetiba Bay; coast of southeastern Brazil