Elegant Tern

About the Elegant Tern

The elegant tern (Thalasseus elegans) is a tern in the family Laridae. It breeds on the Pacific coast of southern California in the United States and western Mexico, and migrates south to Peru, Ecuador and Chile for the northern winter; in the late summer and fall, some also disperse north to Oregon and more rarely Washington. This species breeds in very dense colonies on coasts and islands, including Isla Rasa and Montague Island in Mexico, as well as South Bay Salt Works (San Diego) and Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in California. Exceptionally, vagrants can occur inland on suitable large freshwater lakes. The elegant tern feeds by plunge-diving for fish, almost invariably from the sea, like most Thalasseus terns.

Source: Wikipedia

Classification

Scientific name

Thalasseus elegans

Family

Gulls, Terns, and Skimmers

Order

Charadriiformes

Similar species

Other members of the gulls, terns, and skimmers family recorded in North America — a useful place to start if you are not certain of your identification.

• Aleutian Tern Onychoprion aleuticus
• American Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus
• Arctic Tern Sterna paradisaea
• Belcher's Gull Larus belcheri
• Black Noddy Anous minutus
• Black Skimmer Rynchops niger
• Black Tern Chlidonias niger
• Black-headed Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus
• Black-legged Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla
• Black-tailed Gull Larus crassirostris
• Blue-billed White-Tern Gygis candida
• Blue-gray Noddy Anous ceruleus