Greater Crested Tern (Thalasseus bergii)
About the Greater 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. This large tern is closely related to other species in its genus, but can be distinguished by its darker, battleship-grey upperparts, white forehead even in full breeding plumage, and greenish-tinged yellow (not orange or black) bill colour.
A real field recording of the Greater Crested Tern. Press play and focus on the rhythm and pitch of each phrase.
Listen
Our streaming copies are mirrored from the original xeno-canto file and transcoded to 96 kbps mono — a modification, so we note it here; the licence for each recording is named in its credit below.
1 recording on this page · licensed CC BY-SA ×1 · mirrored on this server, free for commercial reuse · recorded in Australia, China, Fiji, France, India, Indonesia and elsewhere · xeno-canto lists 67 recordings for this species in total.
Similar species
- Cabot's TernThalasseus acuflavidusprofile
- Chinese Crested TernThalasseus bernsteinirecording
- Elegant TernThalasseus elegansprofile
- Lesser Crested TernThalasseus bengalensisprofile
- Royal TernThalasseus maximusprofile
- Sandwich TernThalasseus sandvicensisrecording
Species grouped by shared genus, family and range.