Greater Crested Tern

How to identify

Field marks

1. Bill long and yellow
2. Black crest glossy in the breeding season, shaggy at the rear
3. Forehead and underparts white; back and inner wings dark gray
4. Crown turns white in winter plumage, with mottled black crest at rear

Male, female and young

Adult sexes identical; the juvenile’s head resembles that of an adult in winter plumage, and its upperparts have conspicuous gray, rufous and white markings.

Voice

Territorial call is a loud, grating, crow-like “kerrak”; gives a hard “wep wep” in flight.

Similar species

Lesser Crested Tern

Greater Crested Tern is 25% larger than Lesser Crested Tern, with a proportionately longer bill and a longer, heavier head; Lesser Crested Tern has orange in its bill.

Where and when it's recorded

Busiest months: January and September–November · Most records: Australia, South Africa, China

Greater Crested Tern has been recorded at 538 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 56 countries and regions.

Records by month Southern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Western Treatment PlantAustralia6,245 records
2. Lake WollumboolaAustralia2,226 records
3. Eaglehawk Neck Pelagic TripAustralia2,166 records

Countries and regions with the most records

AustraliaSouth AfricaChinaSri LankaNamibiaThailandSingaporeIndia

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

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.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions