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White-fronted Terns are medium-sized terns. During the breeding season they have a black cap that extends well onto the nape of the neck, white front (throat, neck, chest, belly and vent) and grey wings. The black eyes are surrounded by the black cap, while the frons (base of the bill) has a narrow white saddle. The slender bill is black, the short legs and feet are also black. In eclipse the front of the cap becomes white, with a mottled black-and-white front part of the cap. Juvenile White-fronted Terns have a scalloped brownish-grey mantle, mottled dark-grey wings, and a mottled cap covering most of the head (except a narrow white saddle at the frons).

Twitcher's tip

Compared to Common Terns, adult White-fronted Terns have lighter wing tips, longer wings and a more deeply forked tail. At rest they show a white line along the upper edge of the folded primary flight feathers.

Note that second-year White-fronted Terns are very similar to second-year Common Terns.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the White-fronted Tern is available HERE .

White-fronted Terns used to be endemic to New Zealand, where they still are the most common terns, and the Tasman Sea.

Since the 1970ies, White-fronted Terns have started colonizing Australia, where they are, except for a small breeding colony in the south-eastern Bass Strait, non-breeding migrants. They reach the Australian coast in an area from roughly the SA/VIC border to the NSW North Coast, including the East coast of Tasmania and the islands in Bass Strait. Occasionally White-fronted Terns are found farther West, up to about Eyre Peninsula, SA, and farther North, up to about Fraser Island, QLD.

White-fronted Terns are found on the open ocean, the Australian pelagic and on the coastline on coastal rockfaces, beaches, sandspits and bars.

White-fronted Terns were spotted by T. Morris on two occasions, at Town Beach, Port Macquarie, NSW, in August 2011 and at Point Plomer, Limeburners Creek NP, in October 2012.

A White-fronted Tern was also seen by us on a pelagic to the edge of the continental shelf, 22 nautical miles (40 km) off Terrigal, NSW, in July 2013.