Bridled Tern

Basic Description

The graceful Bridled Tern is a seaweed specialist that forages for fish, squid, and other prey at patches of Sargassum seaweed in tropical and subtropical waters nearly worldwide. Breeding adults are smartly patterned in black, brown, white, and gray, with a long, deeply forked tail neatly trimmed in white. They nest in noisy colonies on small islands, laying a single egg beneath rocks, in deep crevices, or under dense vegetation. At sea, they frequently rest on buoys, Sargassum seaweed, floating debris, and the backs of sunning sea turtles.