Sterne fuligineuse— Quebec wildlife

The sooty tern (Onychoprion fuscatus) is a tern in the family Laridae. It is a seabird of the tropical oceans and can fly for years at a time, skimming the sea surface for food, and returning to land only to breed, on islands throughout the equatorial zone.

Description

It is a medium-large tern, similar in size to the Sandwich tern (Thalasseus sandvicensis) at 36–45 cm (14–17.5 in) long with an 82–94 cm (32.5–37 in) wingspan. The wings and tail are long, and it has black to dark blackish-brown upperparts and white underparts, and a white forehead. The tail is moderately deeply forked (more deeply forked than in Thalasseus terns, but less deeply than most Sterna terns), black, with white outer edges. It has black legs and bill. The average life span is 32 years. Juvenile sooty terns are grey-black above and below with narrow pale fringes on the upperpart feathers giving a scaly appearance above, and whitish on only the lower belly. The sooty tern is unlikely to be confused with any tern apart from the similarly dark-backed but smaller bridled tern (O. anaethetus). It is darker-backed than that species, and has a broader white forehead and no pale neck collar. The call is a loud piercing 'wide-a-wake', also cited as ker-wack-a-wack; it also has a harsh alarm call kvaark.