Sooty Tern (Onychoprion fuscatus)
About the Sooty Tern
The sooty tern (Onychoprion fuscatus) is a tern in the family Laridae. It is a seabird of the tropical oceans and can fly for years at a time, skimming the sea surface for food, and returning to land only to breed, on islands throughout the equatorial zone. The sooty tern was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1766 as Sterna fuscata, bearing this name for many years until the genus Sterna was split up; it is now classified in the genus Onychoprion as Onychoprion fuscatus. The genus name is from ancient Greek onux, "claw" or "nail", and prion, "saw". The species name fuscatus is Latin for "dark".
No audio on this page yet
We only publish recordings we may use commercially, because this site is supported by ads. xeno-canto lists 27 recordings for this species: 2 CC BY-NC-SA. None of them permits commercial use, so there is no player here — the page is kept as a profile so the bird is not missing from the guide.
As soon as someone uploads a freely licensed recording, we mirror it and the player appears here.
Listed as recorded in Australia, France, Portugal, South Africa in the xeno-canto catalogue.
Other birds you can hear here
- Baillon's CrakeZapornia pusillarecording
- Black-winged StiltHimantopus himantopusrecording
- Caspian TernHydroprogne caspiarecording
- Common GreenshankTringa nebulariarecording
- Alpine SwiftTachymarptis melbarecording
- Barn SwallowHirundo rusticarecording
These are the birds recorded alongside it, not close relatives — the site holds no other member of its genus or family yet.