Fairy tern

Weight

72.3 g

Length

Not recorded

Lifespan

17.3 years

Diet

Aquatic predator

Main food

Not recorded

Habitat

coastal

Young per litter or clutch

1.77

Lifestyle

Aerial

Migration

Partial

Conservation status

Not recorded

Countries on record

1 countrysrc for Countries on record

The fairy tern is listed for 1 country.

The same countries as a list

1. Australia

No conservation assessment is recorded for this species in our sources. That is not the same as being safe: it has not been matched to an assessment.

1. kingdomAnimalia
2. phylumChordata
3. classAves
4. orderCharadriiformes
5. familyLaridae
6. genusSternula
7. SpeciesSternula nereis Gould, 1843

Synonyms Sterna nereis, Sternula nereis nereis

Catalogue of Life

LC, Least Concern

Little tern

Sternula albifrons

Laridae

L

Least tern

Sternula antillarum

LaridaeNo free photo yet

S

Saunders' tern

Sternula saundersi

LaridaeNo free photo yet

A

Amazon tern

Sternula superciliaris

LaridaeNo free photo yet

D

Damara tern

Sternula balaenarum

LaridaeNo free photo yet

C

Chilean tern

Sternula lorata

LaridaeNo free photo yet

CompareFairy tern vs Little ternFairy tern vs Least ternFairy tern vs Saunders' ternFairy tern vs Amazon tern

• An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles · CC0 1.0 · E096-269
  Myhrvold, N.P., Baldridge, E., Chan, B., Sivam, D., Freeman, D.L. & Ernest, S.K.M. (2015) An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96: 3109. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-0846R.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3563457.v1
• AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits · CC BY 4.0 · v1
  Oliveira, B.F., São-Pedro, V.A., Santos-Barrera, G., Penone, C. & Costa, G.C. (2017) AmphiBIO, a global database for amphibian ecological traits. Scientific Data 4: 170123. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.123. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4644424.v5
• AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds · CC BY 4.0 · v7
  Tobias, J.A. et al. (2022) AVONET: morphological, ecological and geographical data for all birds. Ecology Letters 25: 581–597. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13898. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.16586228.v7
• Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
  Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf
• Wikimedia Commons · per file (CC0 / public domain / CC BY green, CC BY-SA amber, anything else not displayed) · 2026-11-11
  Wikimedia Commons contributors. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org (each file credited to its author under its own licence).
• EltonTraits 1.0: species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals · CC0 1.0 · 1.0
  Wilman, H., Belmaker, J., Simpson, J., de la Rosa, C., Rivadeneira, M.M. & Jetz, W. (2014) EltonTraits 1.0: Species-level foraging attributes of the world's birds and mammals. Ecology 95: 2027. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1917.1. Data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3559887.v1
• Wikidata · CC0 1.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikidata contributors. Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org (data retrieved via the Wikidata Query Service).
• Wikipedia (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 2026-11-11
  Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org (text under CC BY-SA 4.0; each block names its article and revision).

@misc{fairy_tern_2026,
  title = {Fairy tern (Sternula nereis)},
  author = {{CreatureData}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/fairy-tern},
  note = {Data as of 2026-11-11}
}