The White Tern is a small seabird

Seabird

Seabirds are birds that have adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations...

 found across the tropical oceans of the world. It is sometimes known as the Fairy Tern although this name is potentially confusing as it is the common name of the Fairy Tern

Fairy Tern

The Fairy Tern is a small tern which occurs in the southwestern Pacific.There are three subspecies:* Australian Fairy Tern, Sterna nereis nereis - breeds in Australia...

 Sternula nereis. Other names for the species include Angel Tern and White Noddy.

Subspecies

The White Tern has 3-4 subspecies: the nominate race G. a. alba, G. a. leucopes, the Pacific White Tern (G. a. candida). Additionally, the Little White Tern

Little White Tern

The Little White Tern or Little Fairy Tern is a subspecies of tern . It is sometimes considered a distinct species most closely related to the larger White Tern. It is found in French Polynesia and Kiribati.-References:* BirdLife International 2004. . Downloaded on 24 July 2007....

 (G. microrhyncha) was long and often is still included herein as a subspecies G. a. microrhyncha.http://www.manu.pf/E_MARQ.html

Description

The White Tern is a small, all white tern with a long black bill, related to the noddies. It ranges widely across the Pacific and Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

s, and also nests in some Atlantic islands. It nests on coral

Coral

Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...

 islands, usually on trees with thin branches but also on rocky ledges and on man-made structures. The White Tern feeds on small fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 which it catches by plunge diving.

Behaviour

This small tern

Tern

Terns are seabirds in the family Sternidae, previously considered a subfamily of the gull family Laridae . They form a lineage with the gulls and skimmers which in turn is related to skuas and auks...

 is famous for laying its egg

Egg (biology)

An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...

 on bare thin branches in a small fork or depression without a nest

Bird nest

A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American Robin or Eurasian Blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the...

. This behaviour is unusual for terns, which generally nest on the ground, and even the related tree-nesting Black Noddy

Black Noddy

The Black Noddy or White-capped Noddy is a seabird from the tern family. It resembles the closely related Brown or Common Noddy , but is smaller with darker plumage, a whiter cap, a longer, straighter beak and shorter tail...

 constructs a nest. It is thought that the reason for the absence of nests is the reduction in nest parasites, which in some colonial seabirds can cause the abandonment of an entire colony. In spite of these benefits there are costs associated with tree nesting, as the eggs and chicks are vulnerable to becoming dislodged by heavy winds. For this reason the White Tern is also quick to relay should they lose the egg. The newly hatched chicks have well developed feet to hang on to their precarious nesting site with. It is a long-lived bird, having been recorded living for 17 years.

Relationship with humans

The White Tern is not considered threatened as it is a widespread species with several large colonies around the world.

The White Tern, manu-o-Kū, was named Honolulu

Honolulu, Hawaii

Honolulu is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. Honolulu is the southernmost major U.S. city. Although the name "Honolulu" refers to the urban area on the southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, the city and county government are consolidated as the City and...

, Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

's official bird on April 2, 2007.http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070403/NEWS04/704030340/1008/NEWS

External links

• White Tern videos, photos & sounds on the Internet Bird Collection