Fairy tern Fairy tern The fairy tern ("Sternula nereis") is a small tern which is native to the southwestern Pacific. It is listed as "Vulnerable" by the IUCN and the New Zealand subspecies is "Critically Endangered". There are three subspecies: The fairy tern is a small tern with a white body and light bluish-grey wings. The crown and nape is black. It can be distinguished from the little tern in that a black band extends no further than the eye and not as far as the bill. In the breeding plumage both the beak and the legs are yellowish-orange. During the rest
Royal tern or it may cause it to drown if it is caught under water. Animals such as foxes, raccoon, and large gulls prey on tern chicks and tern eggs. Tern nesting sites can also be affected by the tides; if a tern colony has nested too close to the high tide mark a spring tide would flood the nesting site and kill the chicks and make unhatched eggs infertile. The royal tern is one of the species addressed in the "Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Water Birds" (AEWA). The AEWA covers 255 species that depend on wetlands for part