Elegant terns
Images copyright by Mark A. Chappell
In flight, it's often difficult to separate elegant terns from the somewhat larger and heavier-billed royal terns; these individuals (with fairly thin, downcurved, red-orange bills with paler tips) are elegants. These pictures were taken at Bolsa Chica wetlands in coastal Orange County, California (there is a large colony of several tern species at Bolsa). Several were taken on an overcast early summer day, accounting for the pale skies in some of the images. The tern at the bottom of the page at left was photographed in dawn light with the aid of fill-in flash, and the bird in the odd position at bottom right is initiating a dive after a small fish.
Go to these pages for more pictures of flying elegant terns, courting elegant terns, royal terns, Forster's terns, least terns, and Caspian terns.
