Great Crested Tern
Thalasseus bergii
Least Concern (IUCN Red List)Gulls, Terns, and Skimmers
Photo: Charles J. Sharp · Wikimedia · CC-BY-SA 4.0 (licence)
Call and song
Recording 1 · flight call
Recording 2
Recording 3
About the Great Crested Tern
A large elegant tern with a very long lemon-yellow bill. Black cap does not extend down to the bill. Juvenile is scaly-looking with much more black on the back and wings. Similar Lesser Crested Tern is smaller with black cap extending down to the bill in breeding plumage. Occurs along coasts and estuaries; very rarely further inland or on freshwater ponds/lagoons.
Species account: eBird.org, fetched 2025-12-26 · How these pages are made
Where it has been recorded
Recorded in 78 of the 253 countries we have eBird lists for. Each opens that country's checklist.
- American Samoa
- Angola
- Ashmore and Cartier Islands
- Australia
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- Brunei
- Cambodia
- China
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- Comoros
- Cook Islands
- Coral Sea Islands
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Fiji
- French Polynesia
- French Southern and Antarctic Lands
- Guam
- High Seas
- Hong Kong
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Israel
- Japan
- Jordan
- Kenya
- Kiribati
- Kuwait
- Macau
- Madagascar
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Marshall Islands
- Mauritius
- Mayotte
- Micronesia
- Mozambique
- Myanmar
- Namibia
- New Caledonia
- New Zealand
- Niue
- Norfolk Island
- Northern Mariana Islands
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palau
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Pitcairn Islands
- Qatar
- Réunion
- Samoa
- Saudi Arabia
- Seychelles
- Singapore
- Solomon Islands
- Somalia
- South Africa
- South Korea
- Sri Lanka
- Taiwan
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Timor-Leste
- Tonga
- Tuvalu
- United Arab Emirates
- United States
- Vanuatu
- Vietnam
- Wallis and Futuna
- Yemen
