Elegant Tern

Elegant Tern is a fairly common summer visitor to Sonoma County, best seen at Bodega Bay. Birds may arrive as early as late June but more commonly start showing up at the beginning of July and usually stay until around the end of October. Although adults can sometimes be seen feeding immature birds shortly after their arrival here, Elegant Tern does not breed in the county. Older sources will list this bird as Sterna elegans rather than Thalasseus elegans.

Fairly easily recognized by its shaggy black crest; long, slender, slightly drooping, yellow-orange bill; and moderate size (being considerably smaller than Caspian Tern (Hydroprogne caspia). In winter (non-breeding plumage) the crown becomes white, but the shaggy back of the black crest is retained, making the bird look like a balding man with long, uncut hair at the back (the bird at right above is nearly finished molting into breeding plumage, with just a few white feathers left on the crown. This bird also has an unusually long, lush crest). Juveniles, have a speckled crown, but show the shaggy look at the back of the head. Juveniles have slightly paler, somewhat more yellow (rather than orange) bills than adults, and, perhaps most obvious, they are mottled with black on the back and wings (photos above and below).

Sometimes confused with Caspian Tern or Forster's Tern, but a good look is all that's required to tell the birds apart. Actually closest in appearance to Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximis), but that bird does not occur in Sonoma County. Compared with Caspian Tern, Elegant Tern is a smaller bird (about 17 inches or 43cm), with a much more slender orange bill, a white forehead in winter plumage, and a distinctive shaggy crested look. Forster's Tern (Sterna forsteri), also a markedly smaller bird than Caspian Tern (at about 15 inches or 38cm) has a deeply forked tail; a black cap in breeding plumage that lacks the shaggy look; a lighter, more slender bill than Elegant or Caspian Tern; and red feet rather than black feet. In winter plumage, Forster's Tern is easy to pick out because it loses its black cap almost entirely while retaining black only around the eye, making it look like it has a "black eye." Note that Forster's Tern is the only tern normally present in Sonoma County during the winter months.

Finally, a note of caution: As with the gulls, the terns can be variable and plumages change with age and season. While I believe the general points above to be accurate and useful, terns can be quite confusing, not least because they are often seen at a distance and on the wing, or at a distance and hunkered down on the ground. No one field mark is wholly reliable. If you're serious about learning terns, I recommend the detailed discussions in the Kaufman guides listed below. (That said, Caspian Tern and Elegant tern are usually not big identification problems among the terns in Sonoma County. The biggest mistake is probably assuming that all summer (breeding plumage) terns here that look like a Forster's Tern actually are Forster's Terns without really taking a good look to see if you might have a Common Tern, or less probably, an Arctic Tern. While chances are good that it is a Forster's Tern, it's worth looking to be sure.)