Black Noddy

About the Black Noddy

The Black Noddy is a slender, sooty-black tern with a sharply contrasting white cap and a thin, straight black bill. Its shape and dark plumage are the reverse of the typical tern pattern - dark body, light cap, rather than light body and dark cap.

Noddies are tropical seabirds that feed over warm ocean water, dipping and pattering at the surface for small fish and squid rather than plunge-diving like other terns. They nest in colonies on remote islands, building on ledges, trees, and shrubs.

In Texas the Black Noddy is a genuine rarity - the state sits far north of its normal range, and records are limited to occasional single birds along the coast, usually found resting among other terns on beaches, jetties, or pilings.