Roseate tern and the bill black. Juvenile roseate terns have a scaly appearance like juvenile Sandwich Terns, but a fuller black cap than that species. This species breeds in colonies on coasts and islands, at times with other seabirds. In Australian territory, it has been recorded nesting alongside the black-naped tern ("S. sumatrana"), lesser crested tern ("Thalasseus bengalensis"), crested tern ("T. bergii"), fairy tern ("Sternula nereis"), bridled tern ("Onychoprion anaethetus") and silver gull ("Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae"). It nests in a ground scrape, often in a hollow or under dense vegetation, and lays one or two (rarely three) eggs. It is less defensive of
Royal tern Royal tern The royal tern ("Thalasseus maximus") is a tern in the family Laridae. The genus name is from Ancient Greek "Thalasseus", "fisherman", from "thalassa", "sea". The specific "maximus" is Latin for '"greatest". This bird has two distinctive subspecies: "T. m. maximus" which lives on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the North and South America, and the slightly smaller "T. m. albididorsalis" lives on the coast of West Africa. The royal tern has a red-orange bill and a black cap during the breeding season, but in the winter the cap becomes patchy. The royal tern is found in Europe,