Least ConcernSooty Tern
Onychoprion fuscatus
76 countries17 parks2 dive sites
Species group · Birds
WAnimals has 6 species of tern, in the family Laridae.
Each one has its own full profile. This group does not replace them: it brings them together.
No species documented in this group is genuinely at risk according to the IUCN, with the data available today.
Recorded in 165 countries. The ones with the most species in the group:
Juveniles can spend three to five years in practically continuous flight over the ocean, settling neither on water nor on land: they sleep on the wing and only come down when they return to breed.
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Its tropical colonies are deafening and its ceaseless call has earned it the English nickname "wideawake" — the one that keeps you up.
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GPS tracking studies have shown it can cover up to 90,000 km a year by following favourable wind patterns.
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It eats small fish such as herring and capelin, and crustaceans such as krill.
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It lives on open tundra, boreal forest and rocky coasts of the circumpolar Arctic.
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Its chicks form crèches of hundreds of birds, and each adult finds its own in the crowd by recognising its voice: the identification is so precise that a parent can feed its chick among a thousand without error.
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It breeds in extremely tight colonies where the nests are less than thirty centimetres apart, a density that reduces predator success by swamping them.
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Ranges calculated from the profiles that record the figure, not from all 6.
Its intensely orange bill distinguishes it from the lesser crested tern, which is smaller with a paler orange bill and shares many of its African colonies.
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