Elegant tern

The elegant tern (Thalasseus elegans) is a tern in the family Laridae. It breeds on the Pacific coast of southern California in the United States and western Mexico, and migrates south to Peru, Ecuador and Chile for the northern winter; in the late summer and fall, some also disperse north to Oregon and more rarely Washington.

This species breeds in very dense colonies on coasts and islands, including Isla Rasa and Montague Island in Mexico, as well as South Bay Salt Works (San Diego) and Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in California. Exceptionally, vagrants can occur inland on suitable large freshwater lakes.

The elegant tern feeds by plunge-diving for fish, almost invariably from the sea, like most Thalasseus terns. It usually dives directly, and not from the "stepped-hover" favored by the Arctic tern. The offering of fish by the male to the female is part of the courtship display.

This Pacific species has wandered to western Europe as a rare vagrant on a number of occasions. The first European record was at Carlingford Lough in County Down, Northern Ireland, in late June 1982. It has nested in Spain, and has interbred with a Sandwich tern in France. There is also one record from Cape Town, South Africa, in January 2006, the first record for Africa.