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In flight, it's often difficult to separate elegant terns from the somewhat larger and heavier-billed royal terns, but these individuals (with fairly thin, downcurved, red-orange bills with paler tips) are elegants. Fish-carrying, as seen in some of the photos, is a part of tern courtship behavior as well as being necessary for feeding offspring. These pictures were taken in spring at Bolsa Chica wetlands in coastal Orange County, California; most of these birds are in transition from the black-capped spring breeding plumage to the white-capped winter plumage. Go to these pages for more pictures of flying elegant terns, courting elegant terns, royal terns, Forster's terns, least terns, and Caspian terns.
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