The Caspian Tern Hydroprogne/Sterna caspia is almost cosmopolitan in range, breeding widely across the northern hemisphere, locally and discontinuously southwards in Africa (including South Africa), eastwards across Asia, to Australia and New Zealand.
Within Far East Asia, it is fairly common on migration in coastal Hebei Province (with for example in 1994 a peak of 60 on Happy Island on September 12th: Dierschke and Heintzenberg), but much scarcer eastward. Caspian Tern was considered by Brazil (1991), for example, to be a "rare spring and autumn straggler" to Japan, while the species was not listed by Lee, Koo and Park (2000) for South Korea. Since 2000, however, it has been recorded at least five times in South Korea, with the first seen and poorly photographed on March 18th, 2001, at the Nakdong estuary in the far southeast (Cheon Shi Jin, Kim Un Gyeong, Kim Beom Su, Kim Gyeong Suk and Son Hui Jeong pers. comm.). Subsequently singles have also apparently been seen near Pohang on the east coast, at Seosan on the west coast, and at Cherowon in the centre of the country. The most recent record apparently was one again at the Nakdong estuary, on April 13th, 2003 (go to Bird Review of 2003).
All photographs © Charlie Moores. Taken at South Beach, Discovery Park, Seattle, Washington State (August 2004) and Malibu Lagoon, California (September 2004).
Malibu Lagoon, September 02 2004
Malibu Lagoon, September 02 2004
