Common Tern

About the Common Tern

The Common Tern is the classic textbook tern - pale gray above and white below with a black cap, orange-red black-tipped bill, and long forked tail streamers. In flight it shows a dark wedge on the outer primaries that helps separate it from the very similar Forster's Tern, which looks frostier-winged overall.

Common Terns feed by flying steadily over open water, hovering briefly, then plunge-diving for small fish. They are strongly social, migrating and loafing in flocks, and a resting line of terns on a sandbar usually holds several species standing wing to wing - a good chance to compare them.

In Texas the Common Tern is chiefly a spring and fall migrant along the coast, sometimes in good numbers after storms, with a few birds lingering through the winter among the commoner Forster's and Royal Terns.