🐾 What Animal Lives Where

Where does the Common Tern live?

Sterna hirundo has 3,064,015 records in 216 countries and territories, from 1800 to 2026. Most records come from United States.

Common Tern
Common Tern — MPF / CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
AnimaliaChordataAvesCharadriiformesLaridaeSterna

When it is recorded

JFMAMJJASOND

Peak month: May. Records cluster in the months an animal is present and being looked for, so a summer peak can reflect observer effort as much as the animal.

Where it is recorded

PlaceRecordsShare
United States 703,554
Sweden 482,194
Netherlands 298,069
Canada 287,793
Finland 214,471
United Kingdom 175,649
Denmark 130,988
Norway 115,696
France 103,377
Belgium 56,297
Spain 49,322
South Africa 36,470
Russia 34,406
Poland 30,212
Germany 30,170
Australia 30,109
Portugal 28,261
Estonia 17,507
Taiwan 16,664
India 13,370
Israel 13,103
Namibia 12,819
China 11,147
Czechia 8,795
Greece 8,746
Türkiye 8,722
Ireland 7,591
Ukraine 6,840
Italy 6,584
Thailand 6,492
Austria 5,454
Switzerland 5,411
Mexico 5,246
Bulgaria 4,968
Romania 4,613
Mongolia 3,796
Bermuda 3,730
United Arab Emirates 3,681
Belarus 3,074
Hungary 3,067

Showing the top 40 of 216 places.

Related animals

Others in the family Laridae.

Ring-billed Gull
Ring-billed Gull
11,223,960 records
Herring Gull
Herring Gull
7,289,858 records
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
6,915,295 records
American herring gull, Smithsonian Gull
American herring gull, Smithsonian Gull
6,899,110 records
Black-headed Gull
Black-headed Gull
6,838,408 records
Great Black-backed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
5,036,634 records
Mew Gull
Mew Gull
3,398,916 records
Laughing Gull
Laughing Gull
3,221,312 records
Status from the records: resident
Recorded across many years and months — an established presence. This is inferred from how many years and months the animal appears in, not from a range map — treat it as evidence, not a formal assessment.