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Great Crested Tern

Great Crested Tern

Thalasseus bergii

Migration Flyway

Showing primary migration corridor(s) for this species

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About the Great Crested Tern

The greater crested tern (Thalasseus bergii), also called crested tern, swift tern, or great crested tern, is a tern in the family Laridae that nests in dense colonies on coastlines and islands in the tropical and subtropical Old World. Its four or five subspecies breed in the area from South Africa around the Indian Ocean to the central Pacific and Australia, all populations dispersing widely from the breeding range after nesting.

Source: Wikipedia

Classification

Scientific name
Thalasseus bergii
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

Know when the Great Crested Tern turns up near you

Add it to your watchlist and draw an alert zone around the places you actually bird. Birdr checks eBird reports and tells you when one is seen inside it.

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Gear for spotting Great Crested Tern

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