Little Tern

The little tern is a small tern, 21–25cm long with a wingspan of 41–47cm. In breeding plumage it has a black cap with a white forehead, a thin, sharp yellow bill with a black tip and yellow legs, and it is hard to confuse with anything except the fairy tern and Saunders's tern. In winter the white forehead is more extensive, the bill turns black and the legs duller. Its call is a loud, distinctive creaking. The North American and Red Sea forms are now treated as separate species (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in colonies on gravel or shingle coasts and islands, laying two to four eggs on the ground, and like other white terns it defends its nest and young by attacking intruders. It feeds by plunge-diving for fish, both along coasts and inland on large rivers, and the male offers fish to the female in courtship. In India it is mainly a winter migrant, with localized summer breeding. SoIB 2023 estimates a long-term decline of about 77% and a current fall of about 4% a year, and rates it a High conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).